Peter Bakowski (15 October 1954-), Australian Poet, was born in Melbourne, to Polish-German immigrants.

He commenced writing poetry while travelling through Texas in 1983. His early works, including his first book Thunder Road, Thunder Heart (1988), show the influence of American Beat writers such as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Charles Bukowski. His poems have appeared in over one hundred literary magazines worldwide, predominately in English but also in Arabic, German, Japanese, Polish, Spanish and French. He has lived in Melbourne and London, and travelled widely throughout Australia, Europe, North America and Africa, occasionally as an artist-in-residence.

Born premature, with a hole in the heart, he has survived two heart operations. His parents ran a delicatessen, and after completing his secondary schooling he worked in a series of low-paying jobs before opening his own record shop in the early 1980s. Raised a Catholic, in 1994 he married Helen Bourke - an Irish-Australian seamstress, they have a son Walter.

His book In The Human Night won the 1996 Victorian Premier's Poetry Prize.

Bibliography

· Thunder Road, Thunder Heart (Nosukumo Press, 1988)

· In The Human Night (Hale & Iremonger, 1995)

· The Neon Hunger (Oel Press, 1996)

· The Heart At 3am (Hale & Iremonger, 1997)

· Days That We Couldn’t Rehearse (Hale & Iremonger, 2002).

Awards and Nominations

• 1996 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards: C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry