Review
'It would be as myopic to regard Mr Murray as an Australian poet as to call Yeats an Irishman. He is, quite simply, the one by whom the language lives.' Joseph Brodsky. 'Critics speak of him as one of the finest poets writing in English today, one of the superleague which includes Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott and Joseph Brodsky.' Blake Morrison, Independent on Sunday 'There is no poetry in the English language now so rooted in its sacredness, so broad-leafed in its pleasures, and yet so intimate and conversational.' Derek Walcott, The New Republic
Product Description
Les Murray's voice lets us hear the possum cough his speech, the lyrebird imitate - like the poet - the sounds of creation. These amazing modern bucolics let nature sing itself into existence before the mind's eye. On this CD are thirty-six of Les Murray's most cherished poems, recorded by the author in Sweden in 2007 and produced by Edition Rugerup.
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 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 he won the Mondello Prize in Italy and a major German award at the Leipzig Book Fair.
