Olds left school at 15, settled in Dunedin in the mid-60s and began writing in 1966, completing a one-act play while he was employed by the Globe Theatre building stage sets.

[2] In 1968 he suffered a breakdown, and after spending time in a mental hospital, joined James K. Baxter at the Jerusalem commune, returning to Dunedin in 1971 in order to write his first volume of poetry, Lady Moss Revived (1972).

[6] Under the Dundas Street Bridge, previewed as being "personal...the author takes us tripping down alleyways of his own confusion: waterbottle in backpack, notepad in hand, stalking the town like an evangelist on a mission", was released in 2012.

"[12] The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature notes that Olds was "considered a central figure to many younger poets in the 1970s because of his ability to incorporate rebellious detail of contemporary experience with music, drugs and the concerns and language of the street.

[16] The Poet Laureate, David Eggleton argued that Olds' personal vision in his poems is reflected in "life, death, greed, humanity, poverty, gentrification, Methodism, bees, love, spirituality, medication, buses, trains, clapped-out pre-War Fords, and an immaculately restored white Oldsmobile Convertible with pink vinyl hood...echoing Jack Kerouac's On the Road...the beat generation, reaching New Zealand and its 1950s bodgies and widgies, and reaching Peter Olds, too, as he recalled in his 2012 jukebox poem 'Love Me Do/1963'.

"[16] Victor Billot has said of an early interaction with Baxter, that "a bearded poet-shaman with burning eyes staring at you on a street corner in Dunedin … asking [Olds] to join him on God’s instruction at a backwoods commune" was likely to have made a big impact on the young poet at that time in his life.

Roger Hickin, a publisher who had a long association with Olds, described him as Dunedin's "unofficial poet laureate", noting that the award was a long-overdue acknowledgement of poems which were often vivid and authentic stories that captured what happened on the streets.