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Lionel Fogarty Lionel Fogarty i(A21618 works by) (a.k.a. Lionel George Fogarty; Lionel G. Fogarty; Lionel G. Brown Lacey Yock Fogarty)
Also writes as: Lionel Lacey
Born: Established: 1958 Barambah, Kilkivan area, Kingaroy - Murgon - Kilkivan - Woolooga area, Central West Queensland, Queensland, ;
Gender: Male
Heritage: Aboriginal
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BiographyHistory

Lionel Fogarty was born on Wakka Wakka country at Barambah, now known as Cherbourg Aboriginal Reserve near Murgon, Queensland. His traditional background is the Yoogum and Kudjela tribes and he has relations from the Goomba tribe.

After being educated to ninth grade at Murgon High school, he worked at a variety of local casual jobs, went ringbarking, worked on a railway gang, and came to Brisbane when he was sixteen.

In the early 1970s Fogarty became actively involved in Aboriginal politics after a realisation of the injustices experienced while growing up on the Reserve. His involvement in the political struggles of the Aboriginal people has been through various organisations including the Aboriginal Legal Service, Aboriginal Housing Service, Black Resource Centre, Black Community School and Murrie Coo-ee. As a legal and political activist, and as a community leader, his work has also been directed towards the reality of Aboriginal deaths in custody.

Fogarty has travelled widely throughout Australia and the USA as an ambassador for Murri culture and Aboriginal causes. In 1976 he travelled to the USA to address a meeting of the American Indian Movement of the Second International Indian Treaty Council in South Dakota. Attending this forum furthered his commitment to fight injustice and gave him a broader perspective of international struggles. In 1993, in the International Year of the World's Indigenous People, he undertook an extensive reading tour through Europe.

Lionel Fogarty began writing poetry out of a commitment to the Aboriginal cause, a belief that land rights is the basis of Aboriginal people's hope for a future not based on racism and oppression, and as a way of expressing his Murri beliefs and continuing to pass on his own knowledge and experience. His first work Kargun (1980) was published when he was twenty-two and further volumes of verse have continued to be published. With the approval of his elders he has published a children's book Booyooburra (1993), a traditional Wakka Wakka story.

His work New and Selected poems: Munaldjali, Mutuerjararera was nominated for the NBC Banjo Awards Poetry Prize in 1996. He has subsequently been shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry in 2016, the Victorian Prmier's Literary Awards Prize for Indigenous writing in 2014. His 2012 work Mogwie-Idan: Stories of the Land won The Kate Challis RAKA Award in 2015.

Exhibitions

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17190951

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Harvest Lingo Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2022 26609737 2022 selected work poetry

'Harvest Lingo is the fourteenth collection of poems by Lionel Fogarty, a Murri man with traditional connections to the Yugambeh people from south of Brisbane and the Kudjela people of north Queensland. He is a leading Indigenous rights activist, and one of Australia’s foremost poets, and this collection displays all of the urgency, energy and linguistic audacity for which Fogarty is known.

'At the centre of the collection is a series of poems written in India. Deeply empathetic, these poems are remarkable for the connections they draw between the social problems the poet encounters in this country poverty, class division, corruption and those he sees in contemporary Australia, besetting his own people.

'Other poems tell of encounters between people and between cultures, address historical and cultural issues and political events, and pay tribute to important Indigenous figures. There are intensely felt lyrics of personal experience, and poems which contemplate Fogarty’s own position as a poet and an activist, speaking with and for his community.

'Fogarty’s poems are bold and fierce, at times challenging and confronting, moved by strong rhythms and a remarkable freedom with language. They are an expression of the ‘harvest lingo’ which gives the collection its title.' (Publication summary)

2023 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards Poetry
2023 winner Queensland Literary Awards Judith Wright Calanthe Award
2023 longlisted ASAL Awards ALS Gold Medal
2023 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Indigenous Writer's Prize
2023 highly commended Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for Poetry
2023 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for Indigenous Writing
y separately published work icon Eelahroo (Long Ago) Nyah (Looking) Möbö-Möbö (Future) Newtown : Vagabond Press , 2014 8282795 2014 selected work poetry poetry

'Eelahroo (Long Ago) Nyah (Looking) Möbö-Möbö (Future) is the most recent collection from Australia’s foremost experimental and political poet and one of the best known contemporary Aboriginal Australian writers, Lionel G. Fogarty.' (Source: Publisher's website)

2016 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
y separately published work icon Mogwie-Idan : Stories of the Land Sydney : Vagabond Press , 2012 Z1935398 2012 selected work poetry 'Mogwie-Idan: Stories of the Land' showcases the intelligence of the Aboriginal grassroots struggle in contemporary Australia, laying open the realness of Lionel Fogarty's Murri mission poetry. The Aboriginal struggle in Australia is not over, but here handed to the next generations to promote their strength. Biame guide! Biame bless!' (Source: Vagabond Press website vagabondpress.net)
2014 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for Indigenous Writing
2015 winner Australian Centre Literary Awards The Kate Challis RAKA Award
Last amended 13 Nov 2019 11:57:55
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