Independent Explorations: Les Murray

"Leslie Allan ("Les") Murray is considered by many both in Australia and outside its borders to be the most important living poet the country has produced. He was also a significant participant in political and cultural debate there and thus a very controversial figure over the course of his long career ... "

"Les Murray has retired as Quadrant’s Literary Editor. He held the position from March 1990 until this issue. We asked some of our writers if they would like to contribute their thoughts on Les’s tenure as Literary Editor. Such is the esteem in which he is held that we were overwhelmed with responses. We print some of them here ... "

" ... Primal astonishment: that, or something like it, is the Les Murray effect ... "

"Les Murray, a distinguished figure of Australian letters, has died at the age of 80 on Monday after a long illness. One of Australia’s most successful and renowned contemporary poets, Murray’s career spanned more than 40 years. ... "

""Once in a Lifetime, Snow" was first published in the 1969 collection The Weatherboard Cathedral, Murray's first solo endeavor. The title of the book is from Murray's conviction that the divine may be found in the everyday ... "

"In this poem, an epithalamium 183 lines long, Les Murray urges what can only be called "fullness of being" by tapping into the energetic contours of the Australian theme of "country as mind." Murray has identified the distinguishing motif of Australian poetry as an "endless detailed rehearsal of … Australian peculiarities" ... "

"Les Murray's poetry is defined by linguistic and formal experimentation, a flexibility with language and sound. Crucial also to his work is the landscape of the Australian countryside, which draws on his memories of growing up in the New South Wales region of Bunyah ... "

""New Hieroglyphics" is representative of Les Murray's later creative works. In the preface to The Paperbark Tree (1992), in which this poem first appears, Murray writes: "Poetry is the principle that controls reality." The pronouncement is significant in suggesting the poet's later aesthetic preoccupation: to reflect explicitly on the process of making poems ... "