A first-generation American citizen, born in Trenton, New Jersey, Gorski's parents and sister emigrated to the United States from Galicia, Poland (present-day Ukraine) following World War II, where two aunts and a grandmother were murdered[2] by Ukrainian partisans.

[3] Her father joined the Polish Underground when aged fourteen, and later the United States Army, arriving with his family in the U.S. in 1949 on the General Sturgis, which docked in New Orleans, Louisiana.

There, she befriended Delta blues musician Babe Stovall and often kept him company while he performed for tourists in Jackson Square receiving tips into his open guitar case.

[7] Soon after moving to Austin, she divorced and began her poetry and theater careers in earnest by falling into the "[a]tmospheric landscape of the town that summoned and intoxicated so many beloved ... artists of the time toward intense self-actualization.

The memoir titled Intoxication: Heathcliff on Powell Street details the events in 1978 that are described as the birth of performance poetry as an American regional avant-garde joining the activity of the body to the psychic power of utterance and intent.

The images in her poetry are womanly and challenge what is politically correct according to the feminist dictum of the time, and they reflect a protest against the complacency and inaction of artists and non-conformists.

[10] She had close ties with Gloria E. Anzaldúa, whose book Borderlands/La Frontera is considered a major work in Chicana feminist theory, Ricardo Sánchez, and raúlrsalinas, often performing with them at Resistencia Bookstore and elsewhere.

She was a founding writer for The Austin Chronicle in 1980 initiating and naming the Litera column that discussed readings, books, and other matters of importance related to non-mainstream, alternative, and small press literature, especially poetry.

[19][20] After her career in performance poetry during the 1980s, Gorski entered graduate school in the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and was awarded a doctorate, Ph.D. in Creative Writing, in 2001.

[2] In 2003–04, Gorski lectured on minority American literature at the University of Wrocław in Poland as a Fulbright Fellow and spent five months traveling to various locations, including Ukraine.

In a career that eschewed elitism, she used her own success to help produce and promote the recording of other non-academic vocal poets including raúlrsalinas, Roxy Gordon, and Joy Cole.

Several other print collections of poetry were produced in limited additions, including Early breakfast with Hedwig Gorski and The East of Eden Band Songbook.

A remastered CD, containing a selection of radio recordings by Gorski and East of Eden from live broadcasts was released in 2009, called Send in the Clown.

[33] The archival and remastered recordings by Hedwig Gorski®[14] and East of Eden Band along with a radio drama, Thirteen Donuts, which she wrote and directed for KRVS-FM and simulcast on the web, are available for download on iTunes.