donofriodiva@hotmail.com
Collections:
Looking for an Echo — Lilliput Press 1994
Blowing out the Candle to St Jack — Lilliput Press 1996
Greatest Hits — Lilliput Press 2003
My work has appeared in many magazines, anthologies and journals,
both print and online in Australia and the UK.
I have written two plays which have toured around Victoria,
Australia, and associate produced a documentary Pluck Me, for
ScreenEast in 2002.
I have made several TV appearances both in Australia and the UK,
including being commissioned by About Anglia to write and perform
a poem.
I have supported John Cooper Clarke and Benjamin Zephaniah, read
at various literary festivals including Glastonbury Festival and
on national radio.
I have received many grants including two Arts’ Council Year of
the Artist Grants in 2000.
My work is informed by issues of identity and displacement,
gender and domesticity.
I have recently returned to Melbourne after 17 years in England,
working in schools and with community groups teaching creative
writing and facilitating literature projects. I am a literature
activist and literacy advocate, and am currently directing the
Castlemaine Children’s Literature Festival as well as running a
literacy project for St Luke's. I have recently perfomed in
Poetry Idol for the Melbourne Writers Festival.
With each skinning she gave
I grew larger
(milk, and pancakes, glistening sweets)
padding myself
from the inside out
I tried not to question
why smoothing scraps of wood, in his shed
was more important than noticing
A path out of the darkness came with a boy –
and a girl – cooked for 9 months, their father
(Milk, and pancakes, glistening sweets)
pressed to breadcrumbs under my bulk –
I raised them into wholeness,
glazing them with spittle
(milk, and pancakes, glistening sweets)
still getting bigger
I’d have bent over backwards for trying,
but I could hardly make it up the stairs.
I realised, too late
how they struggled for air,
under my weighty gaze.
In the long afternoons,
when the sun melts the road into stickiness
I hear other people’s children playing
daring each other to knock at my door.
Lisa D'Onofrio
biscuit crumbs
the bed
between us
Lisa D'Onofrio