Born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1961, W N Herbert studied at Brasenose College, Oxford and his poetry is written in both English and Scots. His verse was described, memorably, by Fiachra Gibbons in The Guardian as 'a weird mix of Desperate Dan, MacDiarmid and Dostoyevsky'. Forked Tongue his 1994 collection was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize and the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award. Cabaret McGonagall (1996) won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award and was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize. The Laurelude (1998) won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award and was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. His most recent collection The Big Bumper Book of Troy appeared in 2002. Herbert is also the co-editor of the anthology Strong Words: Modern Poets on Modern Poetry (2002).