rob walker was born in the 1950s when life was monochrome. He began writing from the age of five, progressing to “joined-up” writing soon after his promotion to the Big School. His dabbling in writing continued, penning stories, lyrics, music and even a children’s musical.
He found his interest in poetry reawakened when he was in his 40s. From the mid 1990s his poetry became more prolific and he began publishing work on fledgling internet sites, ezines, journals and collections in the UK, Ireland, US, and Australasia. rob joined Friendly Street (Adelaide’s long-running open-mike poetry collective) around 2003.
Having always been fascinated by language in its many forms, between his time as an educator in Performing Arts around Adelaide and teaching English to high school students and adults in Japan, rob has also found time to write essays, short stories, poetry reviews, co-edit a poetry anthology and produce five poetry books. His work has also been published in France and India and translated into Spanish, Arabic and Dutch.
rob enjoys collaborating with other artists (eg Max- Mo, Zephyr Quartet and ccmixter.org.) He collaborated with his sons Matt and Ben to win the 2007 & 2009 Newcastle Poetry Prize (New Media.) He retired from teaching to write fulltime and travel at the beginning of 2013.
His latest poetry collections are Original Clichés (Ginninderra Press), tropeland (Five Islands Press) and Policies & Procedures (Garron Press)
When he’s not writing rob enjoys playing the shakuhachi and guitar, listening to jazz, growing, producing (and drinking) his own cabernet sauvignon and enjoying time with his grandchildren.
Also see: AustLit bio
Memberships:
• Friendly Street Poets
• South Australian Writers Centre
• Australian Poetry
• Poetas del mundos (Poets of the World)
• World Poetry Society