He is the author of several critically acclaimed collections of poetry, including ''Kill-site'', ''To the River'', ''Moosewood Sandhills'' and his latest work ''Going Home''. Successful even in the early stages of his career, Lilburn's second work, ''Tourist To Ecstasy'', was shortlisted for the Governor's General's Award but did not win.
Lilburn's first glimpse of national approval came in 1995, upon receiving the Canadian Authors Association Award for his work on ''Moosewood Sandhills''. In 2002, Lilburn's ''Living in the World as if it Were Home'' became the winner of the Saskatchewan Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award and was a finalist for the Saskatoon Book Award. Eventually, Lilburn went on to win the Governor General's Award in 2003 for his book ''Kill-site''. Lilburn's work, although primarily directed towards a Canadian audience, has received global recognition and numerous volumes of his work can be found translated in Chinese, Serbian, German and Polish. He currently teaches writing at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. In addition to writing his own work, Lilburn is the editor of, and a contributor to, two influential essay collections on poetics, ''Poetry and Knowing'' and ''Thinking and Singing: Poetry and the Practice of Philosophy''.
