Mina Gorji was born in Tehran and grew up in London. She was a research fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford and is now a lecturer in English at Cambridge University. At the moment, she is investigating slang and idiomatic language for a new book called Vulgar Tongues: Writing the Vernacular in Ninetenth-Century Literature. Previous works include a study of John Clare's poetry, John Clare and the Place of Poetry (2008) and an edited collection Rude Britannia (2007). Her poems have appeared in The London Magazine, Magma, The Oxford Magazine and The Delinquent.