John Anderson was born in 1948 and grew up on an orchard in Kyabram, Victoria. In a writing career spanning 25 years, he published three volumes of poetry: the bluegum smokes a long cigar (Rigmarole, 1978), the forest set out like the night (Black Pepper, 1995), and The Shadow's Keep (Black Pepper, 1997). The main subject of his poetry was the Australian landscape.Though he travelled in Europe, South-east Asia and New Guinea, Anderson's real inspiration came from his native land. John Anderson died, after a short illness, in 1997 - not long after the publication of his third collection, The Shadow's Keep, which contained a series of lines retrieved from dreams and presented as one-line poems and pantoums. (Adapted from author's biography in Thylazine #1 2000)