Alumna Profile: Dr Lisa Gorton
Degree: Bachelor of Arts (Honours) 1993
Most Recent Position: Writer and poet - Winner of 2008 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for poetry
DESPITE winning prestigious poetry awards and having travelled the world for her craft, Lisa Gorton still cannot bring herself to read her published works.
The University of Melbourne Arts alumna, who won the 2008 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for poetry and the inaugural Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize, admits she is her own worst critic. As soon as her work is published, she loses faith in it.
“You’re already thinking about your next poem and about how it is going to be your best,” she explains. “Then you disown your last poem.”
It was this sharp self-scrutiny that kept Dr Gorton (BA 1992 BA (Hons) 1993) from releasing her first collection of poems until more than a decade after she graduated. When she released Press Release in 2008, after being approached by a publisher, the book received brilliant reviews. Set in the Mallee district of Victoria, the sequence of poems explores the history of settlement through elegy and dramatic monologue. It went on to receive the 2008 Premier’s Literary Award, an experience which Dr Gorton describes as “a holiday from self-doubt”.
“I felt very lucky,” she says. “The prize money bought me the time to do more writing.”
Dr Gorton studied literature at the University of Melbourne – and was inspired to pursue her passion for poetry after studying under renowned poet Chris Wallace-Crabbe.
“I think those classes helped decide my career, I was lucky to have a really good class that year,” she recalls. “Chris Wallace-Crabbe was very tactful and created a very gentle and supportive atmosphere – which is not natural for poets at all.”
As winner of the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize, Dr Gorton travelled to Ireland for six months, and from there went to study at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. There, she completed her Masters in Renaissance Literature and a Doctorate on John Donne’s poetry and prose.
After working and studying overseas for a number of years – including lecturing and tutoring for South Africa’s Rhodes University and becoming the Junior Dean of an Oxford College – these days Dr Gorton again calls Melbourne home. As well as writing poems, essays and reviews for a number of magazines, she teaches poetry to schoolchildren across Victoria, and never ceases to be surprised by some of the talent she sees.
“They have a free relationship with poetry because they’re not constrained by the awkwardness most of us feel in relation to it,” she explains.
In 2008, Dr Gorton wrote a children’s novel, called Cloudland. She didn’t purposely set out to write a children’s book, but the story grew from her desire to write about clouds – a fascination that started when she first travelled on an aeroplane.
“I remember travelling to a place with my sister when I was seven and looking out the plane window and thinking ‘there ought to be a world up here’,” Dr Gorton says. “So I always wanted to write about clouds.”
Her success as a published poet and author has given her the chance to travel around Australia, speak at important literary events and make a living doing what she loves. But when asked what the highlight of her career has been and where it will head, Dr Gorton’s answer is simple.
“I still think the best thing about it is just writing the poetry. My goal is to keep going and keep surviving in it.”
By Fiona Willan
