Richard James Allen (born 1960) is a contemporary Australian poet, dancer, actor and filmmaker.
The former artistic director of the Poets Union Inc, and founding director of the Australian Poetry Festival, Allen was co-artistic director with Karen Pearlman of That Was Fast (New York City) and Tasdance (Launceston), and now at The Physical TV Company (Sydney).
[1] Allen has published thirteen books of poetry, fiction or performance texts, most recently Text Messages from the Universe (2023), More Lies (2021), The short story of you and I (2019), Fixing the Broken Nightingale (2014), The Kamikaze Mind (2006), and Performing the Unnameable: An Anthology of Australian Performance Texts (1999), co-edited with Karen Pearlman.
He received the 2005 University of Technology, Sydney, Chancellor's Award for Best Doctoral Thesis.
[citation needed] He is the grandson of World War II Major General Arthur Samuel "Tubby" Allen, son of novelist and short story writer Robert Allen, and the brother of art critic Christopher Allen.