Publisher's synopsis
Les Murray’s Collected Poems displays the full range of his poetic art. This volume contains all the poems he wants to preserve, apart from the verse novel Fredy Neptune, from his first book The Ilex Tree (1965) to Poems the Size of Photographs (2002). In tracing Murray’s artistic development, it shows an ever-changing power, grace and humour, as well as great versatility and formal mastery.
Les Murray (1938–2019) lived in Bunyah, near Taree in New South Wales. The author of some thirty books, his work is studied in schools and universities around Australia and has been translated into several foreign languages. In 1996 he was awarded the T.S. Eliot Prize for poetry, in 1998 he won the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and in 2004 he was awarded the Mondello Prize. His most recent volumes include The Biplane Houses, Taller When Prone and Waiting for the Past. Other works include Fredy Neptune, Collected Poems, The Best 100 Poems, Killing the Black Dog and On Bunyah.