Ken Bolton
Ken Bolton (born 1949) is an Australian poet, editor, art critic, and publisher.
Ken Bolton
- Born
- 1949
- Nationality
- Australia
- Occupation
- art critic · poet
- Education
- University of Sydney
- Languages
- English
In this article
Early life and education
Bolton was born in Sydney in 1949. He studied fine arts at the University of Sydney, where he also tutored.
Career
In the late 1970s Bolton edited the poetry magazine Magic Sam, and began the small press Sea Cruise Books with Anna Couani. Bolton's first book of poems, Four Poems, was published in 1977. In 1982 he moved to Adelaide to work at the Experimental Art Foundation. He edited the now defunct literary magazine Otis Rush 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. In 2005 Wakefield Press published his monograph on the contemporary sculptor Michelle Nikou. 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."
Poetry
• Collections and chapbooks * • Blonde & French. (Island, 1978) • Talking to You: Poems 1978-1981. (Rigmarole, 1983) • Blazing Shoes. (Open Dammit, 1984) • Airborne dogs, With John Jenkins. (Brunswick Hills, 1988) • The Ferrara Poems, With John Jenkins. (Experimental Art Foundation, 1989) • Two poems. (Experimental Art Foundation, 1990) • Selected Poems. (Penguin, 1992) • Untimely Meditations & Other Poems. (Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 1997) • At The Flash & At The Baci. (Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2006) • The Circus. (Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2006) • A Whistled Bit of Bop. (Vagabond Press, Sydney, 2010) • Sly Mongoose. (Puncher & Wattmann, Sydney, 2011) • Selected Poems, 1975—2010. (Shearsman Press, Bristol, UK, 2012) • Threefer. (Puncher & Wattmann, Sydney, 2013) • London journal London poem or "Pendant"(Vagabond Press, Sydney, 2015) • Lonnie's Lament. (Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2017) • Species of Spaces. (Shearsman Press, Bristol, UK, 2017) • Starting at Basheer's. (Vagabond Press, Sydney, 2018) • Salute. (Puncher & Wattmann, Sydney, 2019)
Non fiction
• Michelle Nikou. (Wakefield, 2005) • Art Writing: Art in Adelaide in the 1990s and 2000s. (CACSA, 2009)
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Ken Bolton, revision 1370462072 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Recognition and awards
Bolton's 2019 book Salute was shortlisted for the 2022 John Bray Poetry Award.
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 27 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Books
37,846 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
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