[1] Goldsworthy's novels have sold hundreds of thousands of copies in Australia, and, with his poetry and short stories, have been translated into many European and Asian languages.
His first novel Maestro (1989), was loosely based on observations acquired by attending his daughter Anna's piano lessons with Russian emigre pianist Eleonora Sivan (born 1941),[4] who had moved to Adelaide in 1981 as a refugee.
The Australian expatriate writer Clive James comments that Goldsworthy's poetry is often seen as a sideline, but argues that it is "at the centre of his achievement".
Drawn to the discipline of science, Goldsworthy's poems are full of the language of the laboratory —matter, evidence, elements, chemicals— the stuff we are made of, but at the same time frustrated by these limitations into asking what else we might be.
He's interested in 'The Dark Side of the Head', the things we can only know in flashes, like glimpsing a skink, but he also retains a rationalist's scepticism of the ecstatic – that "thoughtlessly exquisite" evening sky in 'Sunset' won't fool him into rapture.
[14]The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Poetry summarises his work thus: "in every line the poet strives to make language elegant enough to do justice to the world as comedy.
He wrote the chamber opera, The ringtone cycle : for soprano, violin, cello, piano, and iPhone with composer Graeme Koehne.
[25] Petra Kalive's adaptation of Three Dog Night was premiered at fortyfivedownstairs in Melbourne, and also performed in the Adelaide Festival Centre's Space Theatre.
[26] Steve Rogers' adaptation of the novella Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam won the inaugural Lysicrates Prize in 2015,[27] and premiered at the National Theatre of Parramatta in 2018, directed by Darren Yap.
The screenplay co-written by Goldsworthy and director Catherine Jarvis, with Klaus Maria Brandauer playing The Maestro and Madeleine Madden as Rosie.
[23] Goldsworthy's poetry has been set to music by leading Australian composers, including Graeme Koehne, Richard Mills, Anne Cawrse, Paul Stanhope, and Matthew Hindson.