Lisa Gorton (born 1972) is an Australian poet, novelist, literary editor and essayist. She is the author of three award-winning poetry collections: ''Press Release'', ''Hotel Hyperion'' '','' and ''Empirical''. Her novel ''The Life of Houses,'' received the NSW Premier's People's Choice Award for Fiction, and the Prime Minister's Award for Fiction (shared). Gorton is also the editor of Black Inc's anthology ''Best Australian Poems 2013''.
Education
Gorton was educated at the University of Melbourne and at Oxford University. At Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar, Gorton completed an MPhil in Renaissance Literature and a DPhil on John Donne. She received the John Donne Society Award for Outstanding Publication in Donne Studies.
Career
In 1994 she was awarded the inaugural Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize.
Having previously worked as poetry editor for the literary journal, Gorton was the Australian Book Review's Poet of the Month in October 2019. Gorton has contributed essays to the Australian Book Review and the
Sydney Review of Books
The ''Sydney Review of Books'' is an online literary magazine established in 2013.
According to the journal's editor James Ley it was created to address shortcomings in Australian book reviews.
Awards
In 2019 SRB contributor Fiona Kelly McGr ...
. As of 2021, she is poetry editor of ''
Island
An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...
''.
She is the granddaughter of the former Prime Minister
John Gorton
Sir John Grey Gorton (9 September 1911 – 19 May 2002) was an Australian politician who served as the nineteenth Prime Minister of Australia, in office from 1968 to 1971. He led the Liberal Party during that time, having previously been a l ...
.
Writing
Gorton's poetry has been widely anthologised, including in ''The Turnrow Anthology of Contemporary Australian Poetry'', edited by John Kinsella, the ''Best Australian Poems'' series (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015), ''Contemporary Australian Feminist Poetry,'' edited by Bonny Cassidy and Jessica Wilkinson, the ''Anthology of Australian Prose Poetry'', '' ''edited b''y'' Cassandra Atherton and Paul Hetherington, the ''Poetry Magazine'' May 2016 selection of Australian poetry, edited by Bob Adamson with photos by
Juno Gemes
Juno Gemes (born 1944) is a Hungarian-born Australian activist and photographer, best known for her photography of Aboriginal Australians. and ''lyrikline''. Her poetry can also be found online at ''Cordite'' magazine.
Gorton's essays have been published in the ''Sydney Review of Books'' ''and Australian Book Review'', and in the essay collection ''Australian Face'', edited by James Ley and Catriona Menzies-Pike. Gorton wrote the introductory essay for the Text Classics reissue of
Christina Stead
Christina Stead (17 July 190231 March 1983) was an Australian novelist and short-story writer acclaimed for her satirical wit and penetrating psychological characterisations. Christina Stead was a committed Marxist, although she was never a me ...
's novel ''The Little Hotel''. She also wrote the catalogue essay for Izabela Pluta's artwork ''Apparent Distance'' in the 2019 exhibition''The National'' at the
Art Gallery of New South Wales
The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most importa ...
.
Gorton is interested in ekphrastic poetry. She has composed a series of poems for Izabela Pluta's artist's book ''Figures of Slippage and Oscillation.'' She has also written ekphrastic poems for the catalogue of the 2010 Adelaide Biennial of Contemporary Art ''Before and After Science'', for the exhibition ''Conversations in Ellipsis'', and for the ''Melbourne Now'' limited edition volume from the
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum.
The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...
.
Gorton gave a poetry reading at TEDx Sydney in 2010.
Awards and recognition
Gorton's awards for poetry include the Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry, the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize, and the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal. Her novel ''The Life of Houses'' was awarded the New South Wales Premier's People's Choice Award, and the Prime Minister's Fiction Prize.
Her poetry books have also been shortlisted in the Prime Minister's Prize for Poetry, the Mary Gilmore Poetry Prize, the Melbourne Prize for Literature Best Writing Award, and the NSW Premier's Poetry Award.
* 1994 Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize
* 2008
Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry The Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry, formerly known as the C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry, is a prize category in the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Award. As of 2011 it has an enumeration of 25,000. The winner of this category prize vies w ...
(then the C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry) for ''Press Release''
* 2013
Queensland Literary Awards
The Queensland Literary Awards is an awards program established in 2012 by the Queensland literary community, funded by sponsors and administered by the State Library of Queensland. Like the former Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, the QLAs ...
Judith Wright Calanthe Award
The Arts Queensland Judith Wright Calanthe Award is awarded annually as part of the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards for a book of collected poems or for a single poem of substantial length published in book form.
Winners
2020
* Winner: Pi ...
, shortlisted for ''Hotel Hyperion''
* 2014 Western Australian Premier's Prize for Poetry, shortlisted for ''Hotel Hyperion''
* 2014 Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal for Excellence in Literature for ''Hotel Hyperion''
* 2016 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction, joint winner for ''The Life of Houses''
* 2016
New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards
The New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, also known as the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, were first awarded in 1979. They are among the richest literary awards in Australia. Notable prizes include the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, th ...
On ''Empirical''
Jessica Wilkinson, poet and editor of ''Rabbit'' magazine, interviewed Gorton about her poetry collection ''Empirical'', noting Lisa's interest in ‘how a feeling for place originates'. In ''The Sydney Review of Books,'' poet and critic Michael Farrell suggests that Gorton's poetry collection ''Empirical'' offers ‘models of 3D thought', remarking that ‘Gorton reanimates - and translates - historical textual materials into contemporary poetry', and that her work ‘performs as an antidote to nationalist ideology'. In ''
The Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...
,'' James Antoniou writes: ‘an important voice is breaking through here: assured, polyphonic and, for all its quietness, visionary'.
On ''The Life of Houses''
In the ''
Sydney Review of Books
The ''Sydney Review of Books'' is an online literary magazine established in 2013.
According to the journal's editor James Ley it was created to address shortcomings in Australian book reviews.
Awards
In 2019 SRB contributor Fiona Kelly McGr ...
'',
Kerryn Goldsworthy
Dr. Kerryn Lee Goldsworthy (born 14 May 1953) is an Australian freelance writer and former academic.
Life and career
Goldsworthy has edited four anthologies of Australian writing. She has also written many articles, essays and reviews.
She has ...
writes about Gorton's debut novel ''The Life of Houses'': ‘One of the main reasons for Gorton's status as a highly respected, prize-winning Australian poet is her unique and personal angle of vision on the world. It's something that, as Auden surmises, cannot be taught…For Gorton it seems not so much a matter of finding ''le mot juste'' as of making something entirely new: not merely choosing the word or naming the non-verbal thing it represents, but of using metaphor to create a new and separate third entity in which a word or phrase brings an inchoate, intangible feeling, sensation or memory out of the shadows and into the sunlight of consciousness'.
Works
Poetry
* ''Press Release'', Giramondo, 2007
* ''Hotel Hyperion,'' Giramondo, 2012
* ''Empirical'', Giramondo, 2019
* ''Miribilia'', Giramondo, 2022
Individual poems have been published in ''
Heat
In thermodynamics, heat is defined as the form of energy crossing the boundary of a thermodynamic system by virtue of a temperature difference across the boundary. A thermodynamic system does not ''contain'' heat. Nevertheless, the term is al ...
'' magazine, ''
Poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
'' magazine, ''The Best Australian Poems 2008,'' ''The'' ''Best Australian Poems 2009,'' ''The'' ''Best Australian Poems 2010,'' ''The Best Australian Poems 2012.''
Novels
* ''Cloudland'', Pan Macmillan Australia, 2008
* ''The Life of Houses'', Giramondo, 2015