Born in 1941 in Broken Hill, Rae Desmond Jones left school at fourteen and then worked in a number of manual jobs. He began writing poetry in Sydney in 1967. In 1976 he finished a part-time Arts degree from Wollongong University. Jones has worked at various occupations, including magazine editor, public servant and teacher. He has published poetry, novels and short stories. He was a founding editor of the modern poetry small magazine Your Friendly Fascist (1970). In 2004 Jones was elected to the position of Mayor of the Sydney Municipality of Ashfield .
Although often identified with the avant-garde poetry of the early seventies, Jones's poetry has "a strong working-class element", "a surreal dimension suggesting influences from the French and Spanish", and "a persistent sense of social criticism" (Geoff Page, A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Australian Poetry, 1995, pp. 143-146).
