Leslie Allan Murray (17 October 1938 – 29 April 2019) was an Australian

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

anthologist In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically catego ...

, and critic. His career spanned over 40 years and he published nearly 30 volumes of poetry as well as two verse novels and collections of his prose writings. Translations of Murray's poetry have been published in 11 languages: French, German, Italian, Catalan, Spanish, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Hindi, Russian, and Dutch. Murray's poetry won many awards and he is regarded as "the leading Australian poet of his generation". He was rated in 1997 by the National Trust of Australia as one of the 100

Australian Living Treasures National Living Treasure is a status created and occasionally updated by the National Trust of Australia's New South Wales branch, awarded to up to 100 living people. Recipients were selected by popular vote for having made outstanding contribu ...

.National Living Treasures – Current List, Deceased, Formerly Listed
National Trust of Australia (NSW), 22 August 2014

Life and career

Les Murray was born in Nabiac, New South Wales and grew up in nearby Bunyah. He attended primary and early high school in Nabiac and then

Taree High School , motto_translation = May your Sons and Daughters Crown the River , established = , type = Government-funded co-educational comprehensive secondary day school , educational_authority = NSW Department of Education , district = Ta ...

. At age 18, while watching

mayflies Mayflies (also known as shadflies or fishflies in Canada and the upper Midwestern United States, as Canadian soldiers in the American Great Lakes region, and as up-winged flies in the United Kingdom) are aquatic insects belonging to the order ...

along the river, Murray decided to become a poet."Obituary: Les Murray died on April 29th,"
''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...

'', 9 May 2019. In 1957 Murray entered the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's ...

in the Faculty of Arts and joined the Royal Australian Navy Reserve to obtain a small income. Speaking about this time to Clive James he has said:

"I was as soft-headed as you could imagine. I was actually hanging on to childhood because I hadn't had much teenage. My Mum died and my father collapsed. I had to look after him. So I was off the chain at last, I was in Sydney and I didn't quite know how to do adulthood or teenage. I was being coltish and foolish and childlike. I received the least distinguished degree Sydney ever issued. I don't think anyone's ever matched it."

In 1961 '' The Bulletin'' published one of Murray's poems. He developed an interest in ancient and modern languages, and eventually qualified to become a professional translator at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies an ...

(where he was employed from 1963 to 1967). During his studies he met other poets and writers such as Geoffrey Lehmann, Bob Ellis,Wilde W., Hooton J., Andrews, B (1994). ''The Oxford Companion of Australian Literature'' 2nd ed.

South Melbourne South Melbourne is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3 km south of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Port Phillip local government area. South Melbourne recorded a population of 11,548 at ...

, ''

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

'' Clive James and Lex Banning as well as future political journalists Laurie Oakes and Mungo McCallum Jr. Between times, he hitch-hiked around Australia. Murray lived for several months at a Sydney Push household at Milsons Point,Alexander, Peter F. ''Les Murray: a Life in Progress''. Oxford University Press UK, 2000 where he read

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

's ''

Eclogues The ''Eclogues'' (; ), also called the ''Bucolics'', is the first of the three major works of the Latin poet Virgil. Background Taking as his generic model the Greek bucolic poetry of Theocritus, Virgil created a Roman version partly by offer ...

'' at the suggestion of his host, Brian Jenkins. Murray returned to undergraduate studies in the 1960s. He converted to Roman Catholicism when he married

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

-born fellow-student Valerie Morelli in 1962. His poetry frequently refers to Catholic themes. The couple lived in Wales and Scotland and travelled in Europe for over a year in the late 1960s. They had five children together. In 1971, Murray resigned from his "respectable cover occupations" of translator and public servant in Canberra (1970) to write poetry full-time. The family returned to Sydney, but Murray, planning to return to his home at Bunyah, managed to buy back part of the lost family home in 1975 and to visit there intermittently until 1985 when he and his family returned to live there permanently. Murray died on 29 April 2019 at a

Taree, New South Wales Taree is a town on the Mid North Coast, New South Wales, Australia. Taree and nearby Cundletown were settled in 1831 by William Wynter. Since then Taree has grown to a population of 26,381, and is the centre of a significant agricultural dis ...

nursing home at the age of 80.

Literary career

Murray had a long career in poetry and

literary journalism Creative nonfiction (also known as literary nonfiction or narrative nonfiction or literary journalism or verfabula) is a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. Creative nonfiction contra ...

in Australia. When he was 38 years old, his ''Selected Poems'' was published by Angus & Robertson, signifying his emergence as a leading poet. The Murray biographer Peter Alexander has written that "all Murray’s volumes are uneven, though as Bruce Clunies Ross would remark, 'There's "less good" and "good", but it's very hard to find really inferior Murray'."Alexander, Peter F
"Forgiving the Victim, 1996–1998" (excerpt from ''Les Murray: A Life In Progress''
pp 276–286)] When Murray was a student at the University of Sydney he was the editor of '' Hermes (publication), Hermes,'' with Geoffrey Lehmann (1962)''.'' Murray edited the magazine ''Poetry Australia'' (1973–79). During his tenure as poetry editor for Angus & Robertson (1976–90) he was responsible for publishing the first book of poetry by Philip Hodgins. In 1991 Murray became literary editor of '' Quadrant''. He edited several anthologies, including the ''Anthology of Australian Religious Poetry''. First published in 1986, a second edition was published in 1991. It interprets religion loosely and includes the work of many of poets, such A. D. Hope, Judith Wright, Rosemary Dobson, Kevin Hart,

Bruce Dawe Donald Bruce Dawe (15 February 1930 – 1 April 2020) was an Australian poet and academic. Some critics consider him one of the most influential Australian poets of all time.

, and himself. The ''

New Oxford Book of Australian Verse The ''New Oxford Book of Australian Verse'' is a major anthology of Australian poetry edited by the poet Les Murray. It was first published in 1986 and since has been expanded twice. The anthology gives a broad view of Australian poetry. It ran ...

'' was most recently re-issued in 1996. Murray described himself, perhaps half-jokingly, as the last of the "

Jindyworobaks The Jindyworobak Movement was an Australian literary movement of the 1930s and 1940s whose white members, mostly poets, sought to contribute to a uniquely Australian culture through the integration of Indigenous Australian subjects, language an ...

", an Australian literary movement whose white members sought to promote indigenous Australian ideas and customs, particularly in poetry. Though not a member, he was influenced by their work, something that is frequently discussed by Murray critics and scholars in relation to his themes and sensibilities. In 2007, Dan Chiasson wrote in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' that Murray was "now routinely mentioned among the three or four leading English-language poets". Murray was talked of as a possible winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Murray retired as literary editor of ''Quadrant'' in late 2018 for health reasons.

Poetry

Murray published around 30 volumes of poetry and is often called Australia's bush- bard. The academic David McCooey described Murray in 2002 as "a traditional poet whose work is radically original". His poetry is rich and diverse, while also exhibiting "an obvious unity and wholeness" based on "his consistent commitment to the ideals and values of what he sees as the real Australia". While admiring Murray's linguistic skill and poetic achievement, poet John Tranter, in 1977, also expressed uneasiness about some aspects of his work. Tranter praises Murray's "good humour" and concludes that "For all my disagreements, and many of them are profound, I found the ''Vernacular Republic'' full of rich and complex poetry." Bourke writes that:

Murray's strength is the dramatization of general ideas and the description of animals, machines, or landscape. At times his immense self-confidence produces garrulity and sweeping, dismissive prescriptions. The most attractive poems show enormous powers of invention, lively play with language, and command of rhythm and idiom. In these poems Murray invariably explores social questions through a celebration of common objects from the natural world, as in "The Broad Bean Sermon", or machines, as in "Machine Portraits with Pendant Spaceman". Always concerned with a "common reader", Murray's later poetry (for example, ''Dog Fox Field, 1990, Translations from the Natural World'', 1992) recovers "populist" conventions of newspaper verse, singsong rhyme, and
doggerel Doggerel, or doggrel, is poetry that is irregular in rhythm and in rhyme, often deliberately for burlesque or comic effect. Alternatively, it can mean verse which has a monotonous rhythm, easy rhyme, and cheap or trivial meaning. The word is deri ...
.

American reviewer Albert Mobilio writes in his review of ''Learning Human: Selected Poems'' that Murray revived the traditional ballad form. He goes on to comment on Murray's conservatism and his humour:

"Because his conservatism is imbued with an angular, self-mocking wit, which very nearly belies the down-home values being expressed, he catches readers up in the joke. We end up delighted by his dexterity, if a bit doubtful about the end to which it's been put."

In 2003, Australian poet Peter Porter, reviewing Murray's ''New Collected Poems'', makes a somewhat similar paradoxical assessment of Murray:

"A skewer of
polemic Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topic ...
runs through his work. His brilliant manipulation of language, his ability to turn words into installations of reality, is often forced to hang on an embarrassing moral sharpness. The parts we love – the Donne-like baroque – live side by side with sentiments we don't: his increasingly automatic opposition to liberalism and intellectuality."

Themes and subjects

Twelve years after Murray's induced birth, his mother miscarried another child. She died after the doctor failed to call an ambulance. Literary critic Lawrence Bourke writes that "Murray, linking his birth to her death, traces his poetic vocation from these traumatic events, seeing in them the relegation of the rural poor by urban élites. Dispossession, relegation, and independence become major preoccupations of his poetry". Beyond this, though, his poetry is generally seen to have a nationalistic bent. ''The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature'' writes that:

The continuing themes of much of his poetry are those inherent in that traditional nationalistic identity – respect, even reverence, for the pioneers; the importance of the land and its shaping influence on the Australian character, down-to-earth,
laconic A laconic phrase or laconism is a concise or terse statement, especially a blunt and elliptical rejoinder. It is named after Laconia, the region of Greece including the city of Sparta, whose ancient inhabitants had a reputation for verbal auster ...
... and based on such Bush-bred qualities as
egalitarianism Egalitarianism (), or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds from the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all hu ...
, practicality, straight-forwardness and independence; special respect for that Australian character in action in wartime ... and a brook-no-argument preference for the rural life over the sterile and corrupting urban environment.

Of his literary journalism, Bourke writes that "In a lively, frequently polemic prose style he promotes republicanism, patronage, Gaelic bardic poetry, warrior virtu, mysticism, and Aboriginal models, and attacks modernism and feminism."

Controversies

In 1972, Murray and some other Sydney activists launched the Australian Commonwealth Party, and authored its unusually idealistic campaign manifesto. During the 1970s he opposed the New Poetry or "literary modernism" which emerged in Australia at that time, and was a major contributor to what is known in Australian poetry circles as "the poetry wars". "One of his complaints against post-modernism was that it removed poetry from widespread, popular readership, leaving it the domain of a small intellectual clique". As American reviewer Albert Mobilio describes it, Murray "waged a campaign for accessibility". In 1995, Murray became involved in the Demidenko/Darville affair.

Helen Darville Helen Dale (born Helen Darville; 1972) is an Australian writer and lawyer. She is best known for writing ''The Hand that Signed the Paper'', a novel about a Ukrainian family who collaborated with the Nazis in The Holocaust, under the pseudonym ...

, an Australian writer who had won several major literary awards for her novel ''The Hand That Signed the Paper,'' had claimed to be the daughter of a Ukrainian immigrant, though her parents were in fact English migrants. Murray said of Darville that

"She was a young girl, and her book mightn't have been the best in the world, but it was pretty damn good for a girl of her age 0 when she wrote it And her marketing strategy of pretending to be a Ukrainian might have been unwise, but it sure did expose the pretensions of the multicultural industry".

Biographer Alexander writes that in his poem "A Deployment of Fashion", Murray linked "the attack on Darville with the wider phenomenon of attacks on those judged outcasts (from Lindy Chamberlain to Pauline Hanson) by society’s fashion police, the journalists, academics and others who form opinion (p.282). In 1996, Murray became involved in a controversy about whether Australian historian Manning Clark had received and regularly worn the medal of the

Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (russian: Орден Ленина, Orden Lenina, ), named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was established by the Central Executive Committee on April 6, 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration ...

(p 276).

Adaptations

In 2005, ''The Widower'', a short film based on five poems by Murray, was released. It was directed by Kevin Lucas and written by singer-festival director, Lyndon Terracini, with music by Elena Kats-Chernin. Its cast included

Chris Haywood Chris Haywood (born ) is an English-born Australian actor, writer and producer, with close to 500 screen performances to his name. Haywood has also worked as a casting director, art director, sound recordist, camera operator, gaffer, grip, l ...

and Frances Rings. The five poems used for the film are "Evening Alone at Bunyah", "Noonday Axeman", "The Widower in the Country", "Cowyard Gates" and "The Last Hellos". '' Sydney Morning Herald'' reviewer Paul Byrnes concludes his review with:

The film is stunningly beautiful at times, and wildly ambitious, an attempt to be both wordless and wordy, to get to the hypnotic state that poetry and music can induce while saying something meaningful about black and white attitudes to land and love. This last part, as I read Murray, is largely imposed and disruptive, trying to pin a romantic political agenda to the work that's hardly there. It makes the film too literal, too current, when it wants to lodge itself in the more mysterious part of the brain. The film still has a power – Haywood's performance is magnificent – but it never achieves a strong inner reality. It falls short of its own tall ambitions.

Awards and nominations

* 1984 – Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry for ''The People's Other World'' * 1989 – Creative Arts Fellowship * 1989 – Officer of the Order of Australia for services to Australian literature * 1990 – Grace Leven Prize for Poetry for ''Dog Fox Field'' * 1993 – Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry for ''Translations from the Natural World'' * 1995 –

Petrarca-Preis Petrarca-Preis was a European literary and translation award named after the Italian Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarca or Petrarch. Founded in 1975 by German art historian and publisher Hubert Burda, it was primarily designed for contemporary ...

(Petrarch Prize) * 1996 – T. S. Eliot Prize for ''Subhuman Redneck Poems'' * 1997 – Rated by the National Trust of Australia as one of the 100

. * 1998 –

Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry is awarded for a book of verse published by someone in any of the Commonwealth realms. Originally the award was open only to British subjects living in the United Kingdom, but in 1985 the scope was extended to in ...

* 2001 – shortlisted for the International

Griffin Poetry Prize The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. Before 2022, the awards went to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language. ...

for ''Learning Human'' * 2002 – shortlisted for the International

for ''Conscious & Verbal'' * 2005 – Premio Mondello, Italy for '' Fredy Neptune''

Works

Poetry collections

* 1965: ''The Ilex Tree'' (with Geoffrey Lehmann), Canberra, ANU PressLes Murray
at The Poetry Archive website * 1969: ''

The Weatherboard Cathedral ''The Weatherboard Cathedral'' (1969) is a poetry collection by Australian poet Les Murray. This is the first collection of poems by Murray as the sole author; he had previously published ''The Ilex Tree'' in 1965 in collaboration with Geoffre ...

'', Sydney, Angus & Robertson * 1972: ''Poems Against Economics'', Angus & Robertson * 1974: ''Lunch and Counter Lunch'', Angus & Robertson * 1976: ''Selected Poems: The Vernacular Republic'', Angus & Robertson * 1977: ''Ethnic Radio'', Angus & Robertson * 1982: ''Equanimities'' * 1982: ''The Vernacular Republic: Poems 1961–1981'', Angus & Robertson; Edinburgh, Canongate; New York, Persea Books, 1982 and (enlarged and revised edition) Angus & Robertson, 1988 * 1983: ''Flowering Eucalypt in Autumn'' * 1983: ''The People's Otherworld'', Angus & Robertson * 1986: ''Selected Poems'', Carcanet Press * 1987: ''The Daylight Moon'', Angus & Robertson, 1987; Carcanet Press 1988 and Persea Books, 1988 * 1994: ''Collected Poems'', Port Melbourne, William Heinemann Australia * 1989: ''The Idyll Wheel'' * 1990: ''Dog Fox Field'' Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1990; Carcanet Press, 1991 and New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993 * 1991: ''Collected Poems'', Angus & Robertson, 1991; Carcanet Press, 1991; London, Minerva, 1992 and (released as ''The Rabbiter's Bounty, Collected Poems''), Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991 * 1992: ''Translations from the Natural World'', Paddington: Isabella Press, 1992; Carcanet Press, 1993 and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994 * 1994: ''Collected Poems'', Port Melbourne, William Heinemann Australia * 1996: ''Late Summer Fires'' * 1996: ''Selected Poems'', Carcanet Press * 1996: ''Subhuman Redneck Poems'' * 1997: ''Killing the Black Dog'', Black Inc Publishing * 1999: ''New Selected Poems'', Duffy & Snellgrove * 1999: ''Conscious and Verbal'', Duffy & Snellgrove * 2000: ''An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow'' * 2001: ''Learning Human: New Selected Poems (Poetry pleiade)'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Carcanet * 2002: ''Poems the Size of Photographs'', Duffy & Snellgrove and Carcanet Press * 2002: ''New Collected Poems'', Duffy & Snellgrove; Carcanet Press, 2003 * 2006: ''The Biplane Houses'', Carcanet Press. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008 * 2010: ''Taller When Prone'', Black Inc Publishing * 2011: ''Killing the Black Dog: A Memoir of Depression'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 86 pp (autobiographical) * 2012: ''The Best 100 Poems of Les Murray'', Black Inc Publishing * 2014: ''New Selected Poems'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux * 2015: ''Waiting for the Past'', Carcanet * 2015: ''The Tin Wash Dish'', The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press *2015: ''On Bunyah'', Black Inc PublishingOn Bunyah
Black Inc *2018: ''Collected Poems'', Black Inc Publishing *2022: ''Continuous Creation: Last Poems'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Collections as editor

* 1986: ''Anthology of Australian Religious Poetry'' (editor), Melbourne, Collins Dove, 1986 (new edition, 1991) * 1991: ''The New Oxford Book of Australian Verse'', Melbourne,Oxford University Press, 1986 and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991, 1999 * 1994: ''Fivefathers, Five Australian Poets of the Pre-Academic Era'', Carcanet Press * 2005: ''Hell and After, Four early English-language poets of Australia'' Carcanet * 2005: ''Best Australian Poems 2004'', Melbourne, Black Inc. * 2012: ''The Quadrant Book of Poetry 2001–2010'', Sydney, Quadrant Books

Verse novels

* 1979: ''The Boys Who Stole the Funeral'', Angus & Robertson, 1979, 1980 and Manchester, Carcanet, 1989 * 1999: '' Fredy Neptune'', Carcanet and Duffy & Snellgrove

Prose collections

* 1978: ''The Peasant Mandarin'', St. Lucia, UQP *

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

: ''Persistence in Folly: Selected Prose Writings'', Angus & Robertson *

: ''The Australian Year: The Chronicle of our Seasons and Celebrations'', Angus & Robertson * 1990: ''Blocks and Tackles'', Angus & Robertson * 1992: ''The Paperbark Tree: Selected Prose'', Carcanet; Minerva, 1993 * 1999: ''The Quality of Sprawl: Thoughts about Australia'', Duffy & Snellgrove *

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

: ''A Working Forest'', essays, Duffy & Snellgrove * 2002: ''The Full Dress, An Encounter with the National Gallery of Australia'', National Gallery of Australia

Notes

External links

Profile at the Poetry Archive
with poems written and audio.
Profile of Murray with poems and audio
at Poets.org. Retrieved 2011-01-03
Profile and poems at the Poetry Foundation
Retrieved 2011-01-03
Griffin Poetry Prize biography, poem and audio files Murray poems written and audio
Retrieved 2011-01-03
"A life in writing: Les Murray" ''Guardian'' profile 20 November 2010
Retrieved 2011-01-03
Les Murray profile at Macmillan (US publishers)
Retrieved 2011-01-03 *
Five videos of Murray reading poems
on SlowTV (Australia). Retrieved 2011-01-03 {{DEFAULTSORT:Murray, Les 1938 births 2019 deaths ALS Gold Medal winners Anthologists Australian male poets Australian poets Australian Roman Catholics Converts to Roman Catholicism Critics of multiculturalism Critics of postmodernism Formalist poets Granta people People from Taree Officers of the Order of Australia Quadrant (magazine) people Roman Catholic writers University of Sydney alumni T. S. Eliot Prize winners