Lionel Fogarty in Poetry and Politics

Since the publication of his first poetry collection Kargun in 1980, Lionel Fogarty has produced some of the most complex, playful and strident poems written in English, and has been regarded by some as the greatest Aboriginal Australian poet of his generation. While over the course of his career, Fogarty has had relatively little recognition in awards or grants, recent attention to his work suggests a new turn in how his poetry is read and understood in Australia and overseas. Emerging from these conversations, Lionel Fogarty in Poetry and Politics illuminates the craft and art of Fogarty’s poetry in hand with his political activism in order to open his work for new readers and researchers. Bringing together a wide range of critical and creative voices in the first book-length study of Fogarty’s work, this essay collection represents a landmark moment for the study of Indigenous studies, poetry and poetics, Australian literature, and for future work on Fogarty’s poetry.

Winner of the 2025 Australian University Heads of English Prize for Literary Scholarship.