Cliff Yates was born in Birmingham. He left school at sixteen and did a variety of jobs before returning to full-time education. He won both the Aldeburgh First Collection prize and the Poetry Business Book & Pamphlet Competition with Henry’s Clock (Smith/Doorstop, 1999) and received an Arts Council England Writer’s Award for Frank Freeman’s Dancing School (Salt, 2009; KFS, 2015).

His Selected Poems ebook is published by Smith/Doorstop. Pamphlets include 14 Ways of Listening to the Archers, Emergency Rations and Bike, Rain. A former English teacher whose students were renowned for winning poetry competitions, he wrote Jumpstart Poetry in the Secondary School (Poetry Society, 1999) during his time as Poetry Society poet-in-residence.

Formerly Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Aston University, he is a tutor for the Arvon Foundation.