The Year 10 students of Fitzroy High School have once again worked with Papercuts to create Toilet Doors poetry. They were led by Carlton-based poet [[Lisa Gorton]].

The school

Fitzroy High School was closed in 1992. After a passionate eleven year campaign by parents and residents, the school re-opened in 2004 with a mandate for educational innovation. In order to foster an environment where strong relationships could develop between teachers and students, enrolments were capped, with no more than 100 students accepted in a year level.Fitzroy High values children as individuals, learners and contributors. Our aim is that Fitzroy students will become life long learners, reflective and creative thinkers, and responsible and active citizens.The small size of the school enables us to get to know our students well, and to establish deep relationships in order to engage students in an intellectually challenging education based on powerful ideas which help them toward social maturity and active participation in Australian society.

The project

In 2008, Papercuts worked with Year 9 students in Fitzroy's 'Excel' sessions, to construct a Cabinet of Lost and Found. Encouraged by their participation in the program and by their energetic young teacher, Ms Briony O'Keeffe, the now Year 10 students revisited the program through a different project.  On May 13 2009, the class presented and performed their group and individual poems to an audience of friends, family, teachers and supporters in the School's new VCE block. Poet Lisa Gorton attended, and the reading included a dialled-in performance from one of the students holidaying in Manchester. They launched a series of posters created from their poems and illustrations, which have been taken up by local businesses for display in their toilet cubicles. Hosts of the posters include Dench Bakery, 3RRR, Cinema Nova, Tin Pot and The Green Grocer in Fitzroy.  You can download their poem posters here, in 3 sets.  Poems and posters are copyright to individual authors, please contact Red Room if you wish to reproduce these posters:

First set of poem posters

Second set of poem posters

Third set of poem posters

Ms O'Keeffe and representatives from the class have recently appeared on Alicia Sometimes' "Aural Text" program on 3RRR to talk about and read their new work.Read what the FHS newsletter and Sun Herald had to say about the project.

The poet

Lisa Gorton grew up in Melbourne and studied literature at the University of Melbourne. She has released a collection of poetry, Press Release (Giramondo, 2007), and a novel for children, Cloudland (Pan Macmillan, 2008). She won the inaugural Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize, which took her to Ireland for six months. Returning to Australia, Lisa spent some time in Sydney working in communications at McKinsey & Company; then moved to the country near Byron Bay and, in the same year, started writing for the ABR. She has been living in Melbourne for the past few years.