Brendan Cleary

He moved from Northern Ireland in 1977 to Middlesbrough, a large town in north-east England, in order to attend Teesside Polytechnic.

[3] From early in his career much of Cleary's work has been characterised by its conversational tone, one that "seems to aspire to a state of speech that is highly eloquent, almost as if it is a betrayal to have to write down the poem".

The magazine typically published a mix of new emerging voices often with links to Northern, regional urban centres.

Cleary describes his editorship as a quest to discover an urgency in poetry that was missing in the mid-80s and to publish poets willing to 'get their hands dirty'.

In addition to publishing the magazine Cleary also launched the Echo Room Press in 1986 with the publication of 4 poetry pamphlets: Expecting Cameras by Cleary himself, Hicks by Matthew Caley, The Lost Boys by George Charlton and Tame the Neighbours by Martin Myers.