Duncan worked in industry for nine years and then for the Stock Exchange, writing software, for three. Left to write poetry full time, which was followed by the traditional poverty.

Andrew Duncan's work is adept, inordinate and alone. He works in splendid isolation from the elasticity of fashion, a position which enables him to engage.

History, particularly "history" as orientated by post-structuralism, is his stage, whether it be the first balloon flight or the last punk record. In the theatre of history Duncan is the one concentrating on the music as it bounces off the walls.

The thematic strucutre of Duncan's writing is energised by fleeting or 'concrete' dialectical currents. They come in gusts. You can't easily quote from a poem. It's not that you can't show how effective the writing is, but that you can't do justice to the architectural grandeur of the 'whole' piece. He has no fear of embracing the multifarious 'tradition'.
Andrew Jordan in 10th Muse

This clash generates in itself an experience for the reader of strength which is profoundly not power. It comes from a precarious equilibrium-point, not willed and itself formal rahter than psychological or dramatic, at which the limits both of rhetorical drive and counter-sceptical intelligence seem to cancel but actually come to an alignment. The effect, beyond the exhilirating miseries and bloodied metal of locally refused panic, is profoundly strengthening and true.
JH Prynne, writing about Thread of Iron