His parents, Athole and Marjorie Oliver, were Scottish Presbyterians. He left school at fifteen, did national service as a clerk in the RAF School of Cookery and found his way into provincial journalism. He became a journalist first in Coventry and then in Cambridge, and was a staff reporter on the Cambridge Evening News.In 1962, he married Janet Hughes. They had two daughters, Kate and Bonamy, and a son, Tom. They moved to Cambridge in about 1968. It was there that Oliver formed some ties with a group of poets with connections to the The English Intelligencer and the Ferry and Grosseteste presses: part of the group vaguely associated with J. H. Prynne which today is acknowledged as an important epicenter of innovative poetry in the United Kingdom (these poets subsequently became known as the Cambridge poets). At this time, Oliver's own poems began to be published.

In 1970, the family moved to Paris where Oliver worked for Agence France-Presse. Upon his return to England, Oliver took his place as a student at Essex University, which had also become a gathering place for poets. Significantly, it was there that he befriended the American poets Ted Berrigan (1934...1982) and Alice Notley.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Oliver continued to lecture, teach, edit and write. His first marriage dissolved in 1987. Eventually Oliver moved to New York and in February 1988 married Alice Notley who had two sons with Ted Berrigan: Edmund and Anselm Berrigan (both of whom, subsequently, have become established writers themselves). In 1992, Oliver returned to Paris, and lived there with Notley until his death. According to John Hall, it was during this phase of his life that Oliver was working mostly on Arrondissements .

• Oppo Hectic, Ferry Press (London), 1969.
• The Harmless Building, Ferry Press, 1973, revised edition published in Three Variations on the Theme of Harm (also see below), 1990.
• In the Cave of Suicession, Street Editions (Cambridge), 1974.
• The Diagram Poems, Ferry Press, 1979.
• The Infant and the Pearl, Silver Hounds Press (London), 1985.
• Kind (collected poems), Allardyce, Barnett (Sussex), 1987.
• Poetry and Narrative in Performance, St. Martin's Press (New York City), 1989.
• Three Variations on the Theme of Harm(selected fiction and poetry), Paladin (London), 1990.
• Penniless Politics (also see below), Hoarse Commerce (London), 1991.
• (With wife, Alice Notley) The Scarlet Cabinet (includes "Penniless Politics", "Nava Sutra", and novel "Sophia Scarlett"), Scarlet Editions (New York City), 1992.
• (With Iain Sinclair and Denise Riley) Penguin Modern Poets 10, Penguin (London), 1996.
• Selected Poems, Talisman House (Jersey City, NJ), 1996.
• A Salvo for Africa, Bloodaxe (Newcastle upon Tyne, England), 2000.
• "27 Uncollected Poems" in A Meeting for Douglas Oliver (edited by Wendy Mulford and Peter Riley) Cambridge: infernal methods, Street Editions and Poetical Histories, 2002.
• Arrondissements (edited by Alice Notley), Great Wilbraham: Salt Publishing, 2003.
• Whisper ‘Louise’: A double historical memoir and meditation, Hastings: Reality Street, 2005.

Translations

• Albiach, Anne-Marie. Mezza Voce (1984); English translation by Joseph Simas in collaboration with Oliver, Anthony Barnett, & Lydia Davis (Sausalito, CA: Post-Apollo Press, 1988) ISBN 0-942996-11-9