A former freezing worker, factory worker, and lineman, Richard Taylor was raised in Panmure, Auckland, where he still lives. He was involved in the protest movements of the '60s and '70s, and was bashed by police at the anti-apartheid protest at Eden Park in 1981. Taylor's poems combine a love of language and learning with an earthy working class humour. Mixing pub slang and physics, dirty jokes and chess tips, his poems are both intellectual and highly accessible.