Richard (R.T.A.) Parker was born in 1978. He received his D.Phil. from the University of Sussex in 2010, after completing his thesis on Ezra Pound and Louis Zukofsky. 

His poetry has appeared in Onedit, Signals, The Rialto, Great Works, Freaklung, Naked Punch, Glitch, Brand and The Wolf, and he has read at various reading series, including Crossing the Line, Chlorine, and Desperate for Love. He is the editor and printer of Crater; a hand-bound and letter-pressed poetry pamphlet series based in London and Brighton. 

from The Mountain of California ...  was occasioned when Richard received a copy of John Muir's The Mountains of California, which is the source of many of the poems. It is his first collection.