R. H. Morrison was the son of William Allder Morrison, poet (q.v.). He studied modern languages at the University of Melbourne and was employed during the Second World war by the Australian army as an Italian translator. After the war he worked in radio and television news but from 1968 devoted himself full-time to poetry, translating and reviewing. He translated works by Russian, Spanish and Chinese poets as well as of Australians who had written in Russian, Ukrainian and Italian. His translations of the works of Paul Verlaine was issued as number 6 of the Hawthorn Poets series (1972).
