Ken Bolton

Ken Bolton was born in Sydney in 1949. He studied fine arts at the University of Sydney, where he also tutored.^[1]

In the late 1970s Bolton edited the poetry magazine Magic Sam, and began the small press Sea Cruise Books with Anna Couani.^[2] Bolton's first book of poems, Four Poems, was published in 1977.^{[citation needed]}

In 1982 he moved to Adelaide to work at the Experimental Art Foundation.^[1]

He edited the now defunct literary magazine Otis Rush^[1] and collaborated with Melbourne writer and poet John Jenkins on several books of poetry, verse novellas, and other works. His Selected Poems was published by Penguin in 1992.^[1]

In 2005 Wakefield Press published his monograph on the contemporary sculptor Michelle Nikou.^[3] His collection (At The Flash & At The Baci, 2006) was described by Heather Taylor-Johnson as "prov[ing] to us that Ken Bolton is a prime example of a poet breaking new ground in Australian poetry."^[4]

Bolton's 2019 book Salute was shortlisted for the 2022 John Bray Poetry Award.^[5]

Collections and chapbooks

• Four Poems. Sydney: Sea Cruise Books. 1977.^[a]
• Blonde & French. (Island, 1978) ISBN 0-909771-18-9
• Talking to You: Poems 1978-1981. (Rigmarole, 1983) ISBN 0-909229-25-2
• Blazing Shoes. (Open Dammit, 1984) ISBN 0-9591159-0-0
• Airborne dogs, With John Jenkins. (Brunswick Hills, 1988) ISBN 0-9590929-3-5
• The Ferrara Poems, With John Jenkins. (Experimental Art Foundation, 1989) ISBN 0-949836-21-4
• Two poems. (Experimental Art Foundation, 1990) ISBN 0-949836-26-5
• Selected Poems. (Penguin, 1992) ISBN 0-14-058688-1
• Untimely Meditations & Other Poems. (Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 1997) ISBN 1-86254-432-8
• At The Flash & At The Baci. (Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2006) ISBN 1-86254-692-4
• The Circus. (Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2006)
• A Whistled Bit of Bop. (Vagabond Press, Sydney, 2010) ISBN 978-0-98051-135-2
• Sly Mongoose. (Puncher & Wattmann, Sydney, 2011) ISBN 978-1-921450-30-3
• Selected Poems, 1975—2010. (Shearsman Press, Bristol, UK, 2012) ISBN 978-1-84861-209-9
• Threefer. (Puncher & Wattmann, Sydney, 2013) ISBN 978-1-9221-8646-1
• London journal London poem or "Pendant"(Vagabond Press, Sydney, 2015) ISBN 978-1-92218-161-9
• Lonnie's Lament. (Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2017) ISBN 978-1-74305-472-7
• Species of Spaces. (Shearsman Press, Bristol, UK, 2017) ISBN 978-1-84861-576-2
• Starting at Basheer's. (Vagabond Press, Sydney, 2018) ISBN 978-1-92218-188-6
• Salute. (Puncher & Wattmann, Sydney, 2019) ISBN 978-1-92578-040-6

• Michelle Nikou. (Wakefield, 2005) ISBN 1-86254-676-2
• Art Writing: Art in Adelaide in the 1990s and 2000s. (CACSA, 2009) ISBN 978-1-875751-34-1