Erica McAlpine is Associate Professor of English at Oxford and the A. C. Cooper Fellow in English at St Edmund Hall. Her book The Poet’s Mistake appeared from Princeton University Press in 2020; a collection of poems, The Country Gambler, was published by Shearsman in 2016.

Praise for The Poet’s Mistake…

“The Poet’s Mistake by Erica McAlpine is a winning catalogue of flaws and fuck-ups that includes Robert Browning thinking a ‘twat’ was an item of dress for a nun.” —Paul Muldoon, TLS Books of the Year

[McAlpine’s] book is more than a catalogue of howlers; its aim is not to shame poets for their errors but to question critics’ attempts to explain away those errors at all costs…The wager here is that an honest assessment of a poet’s actual achievement—mistakes and all—means more than another facile demonstration of artistic perfection. Whether or not this wins more converts to the cause of poetry, it might at least allow those who are already converted a less mystified relationship to their idols.” —Evan Kindley, The New York Review of Books.

"Almost every great poet made mistakes. McAlpine sees something telling in these errors: even if they are not volitional, they're almost always portals of discovery.” —Graeme Richardson, The Times Literary Supplement

“McAlpine displays a sensitive ear, a command of poetic history, and a critical intelligence that makes fine distinctions clear and meaningful. The Poet’s Mistake is a model of good academic criticism."—Anthony Domestico, Commonweal Magazine

“[S]he writes in a cogent and jargon-free prose, her sentences mostly uncluttered and approachable… [This book] has a useful role to play, albeit in the unlikely cause of bringing poets, or at least their most complaisant enablers, down a peg or two.” —Declan Ryan, Los Angeles Review of Books.

“McAlpine’s point is that accuracy is as important in poetry as in fiction, that intentionality, however difficult that might be to determine, is a factor one must consider, and that unconscious mistakes differ from naïve errors. . . . This study is convincingly argued, delightfully written, fascinating in its examples, and well worth a careful read.”—Choice Reviews

Praise for The Country Gambler…

"The poems in The Country Gambler, McAlpine's first collection, are intelligent and poised. They teach and delight." —Beverley Bie Brahic, The Times Literary Supplement

"A powerful intelligence animates this work, with a maturity of perspective striking in a younger poet. There is something of Marianne Moore in her scrupulously observed animals, her dexterities . . . These poems evoke animals, plants, erotic predicaments, seasonal shifts of inner and outer weather, impending motherhood; most of all, they conjure a sensibility—alert, discriminating, sympathetic, sometimes mordant, profoundly responsive, classically romantic, romantically classical."   —Maureen McLane, Vela Magazine

 "Sensitive and uplifting...[these poems] represent a significant beginning of a serious poetic talent."   --Ian Brinton, Tears in the Fence

"A work of significant technical achievement." --Edward Doegar, Poetry London