In this episode of Fully Lit, we bring you a live recording from Melbourne with two poets in conversation, Lisa Gorton and Bella Li.
Gorton reflects on nearly two decades of writing, moving between history, visual art and poetry. The discussion centres on the new sequence Caesars, where the Mona Lisa opens out into questions of looking, perception and meaning and how images continue to speak across time.
It's a rich conversation about poetry, visual art, and the creative tension between history and invention.
Voices
Lisa Gorton is a poet, novelist and essayist whose work has won major Australian literary awards, including the Prime Minister’s Prize for Fiction and the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Poetry. Her recent poetry collection is Mirror Landscape (2024).
Bella Li is the author of Argosy, Lost Lake and Theory of Colours. A winner of the Victorian and NSW Premier’s literary awards for poetry, her work has appeared in HEAT, The Saturday Paper and Australian Poetry Journal.
Credits
This episode of Fully Lit was made on Gadigal land in Sydney.
Fully Lit podcast is brought to you by Impact Studios at UTS, the Sydney Review of Books, and the UTS Writing and Publishing Program, and is produced by Regina Botros.
Executive Producers: Sarah Gilbert and James Jiang.
Recorded by Michelle Ransom-Hughes
Further reading
Mirror Landscape by Lisa Gorton (2024)
Hotel Hyperion by Lisa Gorton
Mirabilia by Lisa Gorton
The Life of John Donne by Izaak Walton (discussed through Gorton's doctoral work on Donne)
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci
Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari
Works by Emily Dickinson (discussed in relation to Gorton's use of the dash)
Works by Salvador Dalí and the Surrealists (referenced in discussion of the Mona Lisa)
The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci
