Alfie Shoyger was born in 1980 to a working-class London family and with ADHD, a condition that some have suggested marks him out as a Hunter in a World of Farmers. Wandering from home in London to university in Norwich to squatted buildings in Bristol to teaching English in Germany and Poland, he has in any case always remained a misfit. This is reflected in his poetry, which mostly eschews the free verse mode of his day to concentrate on rhymes, metres, wordplay and poetic structure.