Judith Bishop Judith Bishop i(A3724 works by)
Born: Established: 1972 Melbourne, Victoria, ;
Gender: Female
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
1 Red Dirt Hymns Jordie Albiston , David McCooey , John Kinsella , Ellen van Neerven , Judith Bishop , Judith Beveridge , Sarah Holland-Batt , Stephen Edgar , Kate Fagan , Merlinda Bobis , Mark Wakely , Felicity Plunkett , Philip Harvey , Erik Jensen , Jill Jones , Maria Takolander , Melanie Horsnell , Martha Marlow , Alison Flett , Lisa Brockwell , Andrew Ford (composer), 2024 single work musical theatre

'A living songbook more than four years in the making, Andrew Ford’s hymnal brings together the words of sixteen contemporary Australian writers – poets, essayists and folksingers – in songs of praise, awe, grief, hope, joy, and natural splendour, dedicated not to a god, but to the land.

'The ever-daring voices of Luminescence Chamber Singers join forces with two rising stars: Hilary Geddes, 2021 Freedman Jazz Fellow and lead guitarist of Triple J favourites The Buoys, and category-defying cellist Freya Schack-Arnott. Red Dirt Hymns unfolds to the evocative imagery of Sammy Hawker, whose art is created within the fabric of country itself: saltwater, limestone and eucalypt.

'From Ellen van Neerven’s dark clouds to John Kinsella’s abundant gardens, Red Dirt Hymns does what a hymnal is meant to do: it draws us closer – to each other, and to the light and shade of our wide brown land.'

Source: Canberra International Music Festival.

1 2 y separately published work icon Circadia Judith Bishop , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2024 27476532 2024 selected work poetry

'A dazzling new poetry collection from award-winning poet Judith Bishop, a conclusion to her trilogy focused on time.

'Perched on a tablecloth with glasses

for a summer drink- life, on its haunches

like a kitten, thoughtful.

Extending a paw- What happens if?

'Circadia is a shattering testament to the fragility of life and the weight of the present. Exquisitely attuned to atmosphere and emotion, Judith Bishop's poems grieve the daily devastations of war, extinction, illness, death, and disconnection, yet find their way back into clearings transfigured by the energies of art, children, and the sheer incandescence of existence.

'These fiercely empathetic poems range deep into the woods of present, past and future time. With visionary imagination and rapt musicality, this concluding volume in Bishop's award-winning trilogy on time sings in the mind long after reading.' (Publication summary)

1 Unseen Borders : A Breath of Fresh Anthological Air Judith Bishop , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 457 2023; (p. 51-52)

— Review of Alcatraz 2022 anthology poetry prose

'Alcatraz is an international anthology of prose poems which builds on the success of previous collaborations between the artist Phil Day and poets Cassandra Atherton and Paul Hetherington. Contributors include many outstanding poets from the United States (twenty-eight), the United Kingdom (ten), and Australia (thirteen), with smaller numbers of poets from India, New Zealand, Germany, Singapore, Vietnam and Hong Kong. The title with its alphabetical alpha and omega, was offered to the poets as an inspiration. I was halfway through the book before I realised the book itself embodies a multitude of jail breaks, vaulting over a range of conventions. These include its front and back cover – entirely taken up by a numinous painted image, the title on its spine the only printed word – and even the luxurious feel of its paper.' (Introduction)

1 y separately published work icon Twenty Years of the Porter Poetry Prize Judith Beveridge , A. Frances Johnson , Damen O'Brien , Sara Saleh , Alex Skovron , Judith Bishop , 2023 26766341 2023 single work podcast

'This week on the ABR Podcast we celebrate twenty years of the Peter Porter Poetry Prize with readings from six winners. We invited these poets to reflect on the prize and their winning poems. Hear fresh readings from Judith Beveridge, A. Frances Johnson, Damen O’Brien, Sara M. Saleh, Alex Skovron and Judith Bishop. The 2024 Porter Prize, worth a total of $10,000, closes on October 9.' (Introduction)

1 A Soul at the “White Heat” Poetry, the Author, and the Advent(ure) of Large Language Models Judith Bishop , 2023 single work essay
— Appears in: PN Review , May-June vol. 49 no. 5 2023;
1 Portraits of the Future II i "Have a care, we sometimes say, spare a thought,", Judith Bishop , 2023 single work poetry
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June no. 454 2023; (p. 44)
1 Incantation i "The usual battles are innocent then earnest", Judith Bishop , 2023 single work poetry
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 6-7 May 2023; (p. 13)
1 'The Song of Null Land' : The Poetics of Disorientation Judith Bishop , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 452 2023; (p. 50-51)

— Review of The Book of Falling David McCooey , 2023 selected work poetry ; A Foul Wind Justin Clemens , 2023 selected work poetry

'In a world both foul and fallen, where delusion, death, and unassailable Dummheit seem to wait on every corner, what can poetry do that warrants our rapt attention more than every other kind of distraction? Justin Clemens voiced the common lament when he wrote, ‘No-one reads poetry anymore, there being not enough time and more exciting entertainments out there.’ The issue, he said, is ‘a materialist problem that has always proven fundamental for poets: how to compose something that, by its own mere affective powers alone, will continue to be read or recited’ (‘Being Caught dead’, Overland, 202, 2011). That clinches the dilemma rather well. And yet, entertainment or not – and effective or not in their affective power – poetry collections seem to endure as a place, of Lilliputian dimensions, to encounter other worlds and world views.' (Introduction)

1 y separately published work icon Hear Here Judith Bishop , Sydney : Life Before Man , 2022 27508435 2022 single work poetry
1 The Field i "I see women with sunflower seeds in their pockets, thinking of sons", Judith Bishop , 2022 single work poetry
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 19 November 2022; (p. 20)
1 Harbour i "As if", Judith Bishop , 2022 single work poetry
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 446 2022; (p. 33)
1 ‘The Unbearable Sound’ : J.S. Harry’s Forms of Attention Judith Bishop , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , May no. 442 2022; (p. 42-43)

— Review of J. S. Harry : New and Selected Poems J. S. Harry , 2021 selected work poetry

'J.S. Harry and her lapin alter ego, Peter Henry Lepus, would assuredly have had ‘words to say’ about the war in Ukraine and its manufacture by a group of human beings. Peter, a Wittgensteinian, would have pondered hard the nature of the war ‘games’ that preceded use of arms: games in which each ‘move’ was a crafted piece of language and (dis)information, known as ‘intelligence’ or ‘diplomacy’, but where the ‘endgame’ and ‘stakes’ would involve the disposition of human flesh and blood. ‘The dead do not have a world ... / A human’s world is language: “logic” & “words”, Peter thinks’ (‘After the Fall of Baghdad’).' (Introduction)

1 'Can You Describe This?' Poetry, Presence, Creativity, AI and the Brain Judith Bishop , 2022 single work essay
— Appears in: Island , no. 164 2022; (p. 68-75)
'Traduttore, traditore. To translate is to betray-or so the saying goes. Crossing the chasm from one language to another, something always drops into the abyss. But betrayal is as much about an existential loss as a gap in information. As its etymology suggests, betrayal is an act of handing over. In that transfer, something is exposed. A secret, say, is handed over for power; trust is obliterated. Betrayal is an exchange that shatters the known world.' (Introduction)
1 The Forest i "There could be someone, there, walking through a forest – upright or", Judith Bishop , 2022 single work poetry
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 441 2022; (p. 41)
1 Leadbeater's Possum i "I cannot see the night, I cannot touch", Judith Bishop , 2021 single work poetry
— Appears in: Island , no. 162 2021; (p. 28)
1 "The Water Changing under Keel" : Chris Wallace-Crabbe and the Transformation of Style Judith Bishop , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 34 no. 1 2020; (p. 7-21)

'In The Breaking of Style, Helen Vendler observes that "in lyric writing, style in its largest sense is best understood as a material body." The body of style resists reshaping, and though the breaking may seem, at last, as fluid as water, many poems may be needed to prepare the transformation. This essay explores the emergence of an original voice through the first four collections by the distinguished Australian poet Chris Wallace-Crabbe. It tracks the agonistic forces of two distinct styles, present from the beginning of Wallace-Crabbe's oeuvre, demonstrating how these stylistic sources led through gradual transformation to the poet's mature voice.'  (Publication abstract)

1 Morning / 14 June 2020 i "I walked away", Judith Bishop , 2020 single work poetry
— Appears in: Australian Poetry Journal , vol. 10 no. 1 2020; (p. 75)
1 Portraits of the Future i "Look, said the sonographer, your sister says hello!", Judith Bishop , 2020 single work poetry
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , November no. 426 2020; (p. 22)
1 'Lost in the Funhouse' : An Exceptional Third Collection Judith Bishop , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , October no. 425 2020; (p. 55-56)

— Review of Change Machine Jaya Savige , 2020 selected work poetry

'Change Machine is an exceptionally strong third collection. To the extent that a schematic of thesis–antithesis– synthesis applies to poets’ books, this one both exceeds and incorporates the work that came before.' (Introduction)

1 1 Tree i "Voltage arrowed you life", Judith Bishop , 2019 single work poetry
— Appears in: Australian Poetry Journal , vol. 9 no. 1 2019; (p. 23)
X