ROBERT ADAMSON (1942–2022) was born in Sydney and spent much of his teenage years in a home for juvenile offenders. He discovered poetry while educating himself in jail in his 20s. His first book, Canticles on the Skin, was published in 1970. He acknowledged the influence of, among others, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, and Hart Crane upon his writing. But also American poets such as Robert Duncan and Robert Creeley were important and influential contemporaries. He was the author of The Golden Bird (winner of the C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry in the 2009 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards) and editor of The Best Australian Poems 2009. He published numerous volumes of poetry in Australia and overseas. His volume of poems, The Goldfinches of Baghdad, won the Age Book of the Year Award for poetry (2007) and was short-listed for the NSW and Queensland Premiers’ Awards. His memoir, Inside Out (2004), was shortlisted for the Age Book of the Year Award, the NSW Premier’s Literary Award, the State Library of NSW Biography Award and the Queensland Premier’s Award. In 2011 he was awarded the Blake Poetry Prize and the Patrick White Award.