Lionel Fogarty

Lionel Fogarty, (b.1958) Yugambeh/Kudjela, poet, artist and activist, was born at Barambah, the Cherbourg Aboriginal Reserve, near Murgon, Queensland. In the early 1970s he became involved in Indigenous rights, working with the Aboriginal Legal Service, Aboriginal Housing Service, Black Resource Centre, Black Community School and Murrie Coo-ee. He campaigned for land rights and protested against Aboriginal deaths in custody.

Fogarty's first collection of poetry, Kargun, was published in 1980. He has since published a further thirteen volumes including the Scanlon Prize-winning Connection Requital (2010), Mogwie-Idan: Stories of the Land (2012), which won the Kate Challis RAKA Award, Eelahroo (Long Ago) Nyah (Looking) Mobo-Mobo (Future) (2014) and Harvest Lingo (2022), winner of Queensland Literary Awards – Judith Wright Calanthe Award for a Poetry Collection 2023.

More recently Fogarty's paintings have given visual presence to his experimental and politically charged poems. Interwoven with Indigenous languages which reflect his love for his people and Country, they tell of encounters between people and between cultures, address historical and cultural issues and political events, and pay tribute to important Indigenous figures. Fogarty’s painted poems are intensely felt, bold and fierce and at times challenging and confronting.