Alan Jenkins has worked at the Times Literary Supplement since 1981, first as Poetry and Fiction Editor and, for the past twelve years, as Deputy Editor. He has been poetry critic on The Observer and The Independent on Sunday, and has taught creative writing and led workshops in London, Paris and the USA (Bread Loaf and Princeton). His books of poetry include In The Hot-House (1988), Greenheart (1990), Harm (1994), which won the Forward Prize for Best Collection, The Drift (2000), which was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize, and The Little Black Book (2001).  A Short History of Snakes was published in 2001 and a new collection, A Shorter Life, will be published by Chatto & Windus in 2005.