Lisa Gorton

Lisa Gorton (born 1972) is an Australian poet, novelist, literary editor and essayist.^[1] She is the author of four award-winning poetry collections: Press Release,^[2] Hotel Hyperion,^[3] Empirical,^[4] and Mirabilia.^[5] Her second novel, The Life of Houses, received the NSW Premier's People's Choice Award for Fiction^[6] and the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction (shared).^[7] Gorton is also the editor of Black Inc's anthology Best Australian Poems 2013.^[8]

Gorton was educated at the University of Melbourne and at University of Oxford.^[9] At Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar, Gorton completed an MPhil in Renaissance Literature and a DPhil on John Donne.^[9] She received the John Donne Society Award for Outstanding Publication in Donne Studies.^[10]

In 1994 she was awarded the inaugural Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize.^[11]

Having previously worked as poetry editor for the Australian Book Review, Gorton was selected as ABR Poet of the Month in October 2019.^[12][13] Gorton has contributed essays to the Australian Book Review^[12] and the Sydney Review of Books.^[14] As of 2021^[update], she is poetry editor of Island Magazine.^[15]

She is the granddaughter of the former Prime Minister John Gorton.^[11]

Gorton's poetry has been widely anthologised, including in The Turnrow Anthology of Contemporary Australian Poetry,^[16]The Best Australian Poems series (2008,^[17] 2009,^[18] 2010,^[19] 2011,^[20] 2012,^[21] 2014,^[22] 2015^[23]), Contemporary Australian Feminist Poetry,^[24] the Anthology of Australian Prose Poetry,^[25] the Poetry Magazine May 2016 selection of Australian poetry, edited by Robert Adamson, with photographs by Juno Gemes,^[26] and online anthologies Poetry International^[9] and lyrikline.^[27] Her poetry can also be found online at Cordite magazine.^[28]

Gorton's essays have been published in the Sydney Review of Books^[29] and Australian Book Review,^[30] and in the essay collection Australian Face.^[31] Gorton wrote the introductory essay for the Text Classics reissue of Christina Stead's novel The Little Hotel.^[32] 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.^[33]

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.^[34] She has also written ekphrastic poems for the catalogue of the 2010 Adelaide Biennial of Contemporary Art Before and After Science,^[35] for the exhibition Conversations in Ellipsis,^[36] and for the Melbourne Now limited edition volume from the National Gallery of Victoria.^[37]

Gorton gave a poetry reading at TEDx Sydney in 2010.^[38]

Gorton's awards for poetry include the Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry,^[30] the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize,^[10] and the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal.^[39] 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.^[6]  

Her poetry books have also been shortlisted in the Prime Minister's Prize for Poetry,^[40] the Mary Gilmore Poetry Prize,^[41] the Melbourne Prize for Literature Best Writing Award,^[41] and the NSW Premier's Poetry Award.^[42]

• 1994 Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize^[11]
• 2008 Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry (then the C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry) for Press Release ^[43]
• 2013 Queensland Literary Awards Judith Wright Calanthe Award, shortlisted for Hotel Hyperion^[10]
• 2014 Western Australian Premier's Book Award for Poetry, shortlisted for Hotel Hyperion ^[44]
• 2014 Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal for Excellence in Literature for Hotel Hyperion ^[45]
• 2016 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction, joint winner for The Life of Houses ^[46]
• 2016 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards People's Choice Award for The Life of Houses ^[47]
• 2020 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, shortlisted for Empirical ^[48]
• 2022 Wesley Michel Wright Prize^[49]
• 2023 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, shortlisted for Miribilia^[50]

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".^[51] 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".^[52] In The Sydney Morning Herald, James Antoniou writes: "an important voice is breaking through here: assured, polyphonic and, for all its quietness, visionary".^[53]

On The Life of Houses

In the Sydney Review of Books, Kerryn Goldsworthy writes about Gorton's debut novel The Life of Houses:^[54] "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."

Individual poems have been published in HEAT,^[55] Poetry,^[56] The Best Australian Poems 2008,^[17] The Best Australian Poems 2009,^[18] The Best Australian Poems 2010,^[19] and The Best Australian Poems 2012.^[21]

• —— (2007). Press Release. Giramondo. ISBN 9781920882341.
• —— (2012). Hotel Hyperion. Giramondo. ISBN 9781922146274.
• —— (2019). Empirical. Giramondo. ISBN 9781925818116.
• —— (2022). Miribilia. Giramondo. ISBN 9781922725301.

• —— (2008). Cloudland. Pan Macmillan Australia. ISBN 9781741982725.
• —— (2015). The Life of Houses. Giramondo. ISBN 9781922146809.

• ——, ed. (2013). The Best Australia Poems 2013. Collingwood: Black Inc. ISBN 9781863956277. OCLC 867108727.

• Official website
• Giramondo Publishing - Author Page
• AustLit Database - Biography