Ken Bolton


Ken Bolton is an Australian poet, editor, art critic, and publisher.

Early life and education

Ken 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 was described by Heather Taylor-Johnson as "prov to us that Ken Bolton is a prime example of a poet breaking new ground in Australian poetry."

Recognition and awards

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

Poetry

;Collections and chapbooks
  • Blonde & French.
  • Talking to You: Poems 1978-1981.
  • Blazing Shoes.
  • Airborne dogs, With John Jenkins.
  • The Ferrara Poems, With John Jenkins.
  • Two poems.
  • Selected Poems.
  • Untimely Meditations & Other Poems.
  • At The Flash & At The Baci.
  • The Circus.
  • A Whistled Bit of Bop.
  • Sly Mongoose.
  • Selected Poems, 1975—2010.
  • Threefer.
  • London journal London poem or "Pendant"
  • Lonnie's Lament.
  • Species of Spaces.
  • Starting at Basheer's.
  • Salute.

    Non fiction

  • Michelle Nikou.
  • Art Writing: Art in Adelaide in the 1990s and 2000s.