Born in England, Rodney Pybus read English and Classics at Cambridge. He worked as a journalist, feature writer, literary editor and television producer in the 1960s and 1970s, and during this period he began publishing poetry in British magazines. For many years from 1964 he was closely associated with the literary quarterly Stand. In 1973 his first, award-winning collection of poetry (In Memoriam Milena) was published.
From 1976 to 1979 he was a Lecturer in Mass Communication in the School of English and Linguistics at Macquarie University, Sydney. From 1979 to 1982 he was literature officer for Cumbria. In 1983 he moved to Suffolk, where he has been living since. He has taught creative writing and English literature, as well as holding Arts Council of Great Britain writer's fellowships and a Hawthornden Fellowship.
Only Pybus' works published in Australia or with Australian content are listed here.