New Selected Poems

Les Murray (1938-2019) grew up on a dairy farm at Bunyah on the north coast of New South Wales.He studied at Sydney University and later worked as a translator at the Australian National University and as an officer in the Prime Minister's Department.His real vocation was poetry, however, and from 1971 he has made literature his full-time career. He was the first Australian poet to achieve international acclaim without expatriation. Murray first visited Europe in the sixties, and returned frequently to give poetry readings.Carcanet publish his Collected Poems and his New Selected Poems (2012), as well as his individual collections, including Subhuman Redneck Poems (1996, awarded the T.S.Eliot Prize) and The Biplane Houses (2006), and his essays and prose writings in The Paperbark Tree (1992). His verse novel Fredy Neptune appeared in 1998 and in 2004 won the Mondello Prize in Italy and a major German award at the Leipzig Book Fair. He also edited The Quadrant Book of Poetry 2001-2010.Murray had special links with Scotland, and his Scots ancestors, whilst remaining an important and distinctive Australian writer. Blake Morrison, writing in the Independent on Sunday, called Murray: 'one of the finest poets writing in English today, one of the super league which includes Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott and Joseph Brodsky', and C. K. Stead said of his poetry in the London Review of Books: 'It is wonderfully disciplined writing, offering what poetry and nothing else can offer, an art that arrests one's otherwise ever frustrated sense of the richness of the life that lives only for the moment'.In 1994 Murray was nominated for the Oxford Chair of Poetry and in June 1999 he was awarded The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry at Buckingham Palace, an honour was recommended by the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes.Les Murray has a page on the Poetry Archive website, where you can listen to audio recordings of his poetry and access other useful resources. Click here.

• The Burning TruckDriving through Sawmill TownsAn Absolutely Ordinary RainbowWorking MenVindaloo in Merthyr TydfilIncorrigible GraceThe Pure Food ActJózsefKiss of the WhipThe Broad Bean SermonThe MitchellsThe Powerline IncarnationCreeper HabitEmployment for the Castes in AbeyanceDriving to the Adelaide Festival 1976 via the Murray Valley HighwayThe Buladelah-Taree Holiday Song CycleThe Gum ForestRainwater TankThe FutureImmigrant VoyageThe Craze FieldThe Grassfire StanzasHomage to the Launching-placeFirst Essay on InterestThe Fishermen at South HeadView of Sydney, Australia, from Gladesville Road BridgeQuintets for Robert MorleyEquanimityShowerTwo Poems in Memory of My Mother, Miriam Murray née ArnallWeightsMidsummer IceMachine Portraits with Pendant SpacemanThe HypogeumSecond Essay on Interest: the EmuA Retrospect of HumidityFlowering Eucalypt in AutumnThe Chimes of NeverwhereThe Smell of Coal SmokeTime TravelThe DarkFlood Plains on the Coast Facing AsiaThe Dream of Wearing Shorts ForeverAt the Aquatic CarnivalThe SleepoutLouvresLetters to the WinnerThe Milk LorryThe Butter FactoryRoman Cage-cupsThe Lake SurnamesNocturneLotus DamHearing ImpairmentAt Thunderbolt’s Grave in UrallaPoetry and ReligionMay: When Bounty is Down to Persimmons and LemonsJune: The KitchensJuly: Midwinter HaircutAugust: Forty Acre EthnoSeptember: MercurialNovember: The Misery CordDecember: Infant Among CattleFebruary: FebThe Transposition of ClermontCave Divers Near Mount GambierThe Tin Wash DishThe Inverse TransportsThe Pole BarnsGlazeShale CountryThe International TerminalGranite CountryDog Fox FieldHastings River CruiseWords of the GlassblowersHigh SugarOn Removing SpiderwebThe Assimilation of BackgroundAccordion MusicArielPolitics and ArtThe Ballad of the Barbed Wire OceanMidnight LakeAntarctiaBlue RoanThe Gaelic Long TunesWagtailBats’ UltrasoundEagle PairTwo DogsCockspur BushLyrebirdShoalCattle AncestorMolluscThe Snake’s Heat OrganYard HorseThe Octave of ElephantsPigsThe Cows on Killing DayShellback TickCell DNAGoose to DonkeySpermacetiMigratoryHome SuiteThe Wedding at BerricoCrankshaftThe Family Farmers’ VictoryDead Trees in the DamRock MusicThe RolloverLate Summer FiresCornicheSuspended VesselsThe Water ColumnThe BeneficiariesWallis Lake EstuaryOn Home BeachesOn the Present Slaughter of Feral AnimalsMemories of the Height-to-Weight RatioIt Allows a Portrait in Line Scan at FifteenPerformanceSecond Childhood is LegalInside Ayers RockContested Landscape at ForsaythThe Shield-Scales of HeraldryThe Year of the Kiln PortraitsTympan AlleyA Lego of Driving to SydneyBurning WantThe Last HellosCometeCotton FlanneletteThe Warm RainDemoDeaf LanguageThe Head-SpiderDreambabweAmanda’s PaintingOne Kneeling, One Looking DownThe Margin of DifferenceA ReticenceThe HarleysAurora ProneThe InstrumentMusic to Me is Like DaysA Deployment of FashionTo Me You’ll Always Be SpatThe DisorderlyA PostcardThe InternationaleOasis CityTowards 2000You Find You Can Leave It AllSmall Flag Above the SlaughterDownhill on Borrowed SkisThe Holy ShowA RiddleSound BitesIn the Costume of AndalusiaAutumn CelloThe New HieroglyphicsThe Annals of SheerErnest Hemingway and the Latest QuakeThe Images AloneRooms of the Sketch-GardenThe Tin ClothesJudged Worth EvacuatingThe Moon ManSuccourPredawn in HealthTouchdownThe Cut-OutVisitorClothing as Dwelling as Shouldered BoatStarry NightThe Kettle’s Bubble-Making FloorBig BangWorker KnowledgeJellyfishThe Great Cuisine Cleaver Dance SonnetCreole ExamHoon HoonA CountrymanThe End of SymbolReclaim the SitesThe Bellwether BrushIn a Time of CuisineUplandsThe Pay for FosterageA Study of the NudeIguassuPietà Once Attributed to Cosme TuraThe Knockdown QuestionThe InsidersPop MusicThe Body in PhysicsFruit Bat Colony by DayThe Climax of Factory FarmingThe Poisons of Right and LeftThe Top Alcohol ContenderApsley FallsTo One Outside the CulturePortrait of a Felspar-Coloured CatAt UniversityThe Young FoxExperienceThe Barcaldine SuiteThe Meaning of ExistenceThe Aboriginal CricketerThe Aztec RevivalThe AvertedPost MortemThe Hanging GardensLeaf BrimsThe Statistics of GoodTwelve PoemsTravelling the British RoadsWinter WindsThe Tune on Your MindA Dialect History of AustraliaFor an Eightieth BirthdayMelbourne Pavement CoffeeBlack Belt in Marital ArtsThe WelterA Levitation of LandThrough the Lattice DoorOn the North Coast LineThe Nostril SongsThe Newcastle RoundsThe House Left in EnglishYregamiUpright Clear AcrossThe Shining Slopes and PlanesThe SuccessionThe Offshore IslandThe HoaxistThe Cool GreenDeath from ExposureMe and Je ReviensPressureChurchPastoral SketchThe Mare out on the RoadThe BlueprintBlueprint IINorfolk IslandBirthplaceLateral DimensionsBright Lights on EarthPanic AttackSunday on a Country RiverRipe in the Arbours of the NoseIndustrial RelationsFrom a Tourist JournalDefinitionsThe ConversationsThe Double DiamondAs Country Was SlowMidiObserving the Mute CatNursing HomeFameCattle-Hoof HardpanPhone CanvassScience FictionBrown SuitsSouthern Hemisphere GardenThe Suspect CorpseEucalypts in ExileCherries from YoungCrocHigh-speed BirdThe Cowladder StanzasThe Farm TerracesVisiting GenevaThe Bronze BullPort Jackson Greaseproof RoseThe SpringfieldsRugby WheelsA Frequent Flyer Proposes a NameHesiod on BushfireThe BlameDaylight ClothThe MirrorballInfinite AnthologyManuscript RoundelNatal GrassThe Black BeachesInspecting the RivermouthHigh RiseNuclear Family BeesWhen Two Per Cent Were StudentsI Wrote A Little HaikuWest Coast TownshipMoney and the Flying HorsesSun TaikoChild LogicPowder of LightIndex of First LinesIndex of Titles

Who else but Les Murray could write a fine poem about the links between a Saxon queen and the Thames Estuary airport proposed by 'the jarl of London,/ white-polled Boris'?Like Seamus Heaney or Derek Walcott, he's an erudite backwoodsman, a boondocks dandy who brings the natural and human worlds of his native rural New South Wales onto the global stage.A tender bruiser, the veteran Australian maestro is prodigiously gifted in matters of form and language but defiantly plebeian in outlook and instinct.All those who cherish the voice of 'the aberrant, the original, the wounded' should seek out this cornucopian collection from a grand career.