New Selected Poems
"New Selected Poems" contains Les Murray's gathering from the full range of his poetry, from poems of the 1960s to work from "Taller When Prone" (2004) and new poems yet to appear in a collection.
Les Murray is one of the finest poets writing today; endlessly inventive, his work celebrates the world and the power of the imagination. "New Selected Poems" is the poet's choice of his essential works: an indispensable collection for readers who already love his poetry, and an ideal introduction for those new to it.
Les Murray is one of the finest poets writing today; endlessly inventive, his work celebrates the world and the power of the imagination. "New Selected Poems" is the poet's choice of his essential works: an indispensable collection for readers who already love his poetry, and an ideal introduction for those new to it.
About the author
Les Murray was born in 1938 and grew up on a dairy farm at Bunyah on the north coast of New South Wales, where he still lives. 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 has returned frequently since then 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" (1966, 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 has 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.
Carcanet publish his "Collected Poems" and his "New Selected Poems" (2012), as well as his individual collections, including "Subhuman Redneck Poems" (1966, 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 has 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.
Reviews
1994 nomination for the Oxford Chair of Poetry
1996 T. S. Eliot Prize for the best collection (Subhuman Redneck Poems)
1999 Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry
"Murray is one of the very few poets with whose best work you feel that having read it you won't, can't be quite the same again" – Robert Crawford, London Review of Books Awards won by Les Murray
1996 T. S. Eliot Prize for the best collection (Subhuman Redneck Poems)
1999 Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry
"Murray is one of the very few poets with whose best work you feel that having read it you won't, can't be quite the same again" – Robert Crawford, London Review of Books Awards won by Les Murray