He received his education at Southland Boys' High School in Invercargill and graduated from the University of Otago in Dunedin with a Bachelor of Arts with a major in English.
He then trained as a librarian in Wellington and worked at Otago Polytechnic's Bill Robertson Library until he was made redundant in 2007.
In Christchurch, Dickson worked at the Millennium Hotel as a kitchen hand and as an undertaker for Heritage Funeral Services.
[1][2] Dickson started writing poetry as a teenager, initially influenced by Vladimir Mayakovsky and T. S. Eliot, and later Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Blaise Cendrars, and Francis Ponge.
[2][5][6] Dickson's Mister Hamilton was discussed on 3 December 2016 by poet Gregory O'Brien with Kim Hill on Radio New Zealand's Saturday Morning show.