AustLit logo
NLA image of person
Les Murray Les Murray i(A11558 works by) (a.k.a. Leslie Allan Murray; L. Murray; Les A. Murray)
Born: Established: 17 Oct 1938 Nabiac, Krambach - Nabiac - Hallidays Point area, Greater Taree, Mid North Coast, New South Wales, ; Died: Ceased: 29 Apr 2019 Taree, Taree area, Greater Taree, Mid North Coast, New South Wales,
Gender: Male
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

BiographyHistory

Les Murray grew up on his grandfather's small dairy farm in the close-knit Presbyterian community of Bunyah and attended area schools before matriculating to Sydney University in 1957. Pursuing his interest in modern poetry, Murray edited university magazines and submitted poetry to a number of periodicals. Despite discontinuing his studies in 1960 he continued to write and publish poetry and maintained contact with university friends such as Geoffrey Lehmann and Bob Ellis.

In 1961 Murray hitch-hiked around Australia, returning to Sydney in 1962 when he married Valerie Gina Morelli. He moved to Canberra in 1963 and worked as a translator of Western European Languages at the Australian National University until 1967. After travelling in Europe, Murray returned to Sydney in 1969, completed his B.A. degree and published his first solo book of verse. After a brief period in the public service in 1971, Murray decided to become a freelance writer.  In 1972, Murray was part of a group of activists who launched the Australian Commonwealth Party.

Les Murray served as editor of Poetry Australia (1973-1979), poetry editor of Angus and Robertson (1976-1990) and literary editor of Quadrant from 1990 to 2018. He received numerous grants and fellowships and held appointments as writer-in-residence at several universities as well as working as a reviewer and columnist for newspapers and journals.

Les Murray received international recognition unprecedented for an Australian poet and his work has been widely published in Europe and North America and translated into a number of other languages. He is a prolific writer whose oeuvre comprises a wide range of literary forms including lyric and narrative poetry, song cycles, verse novels , essays, social commentary and literary criticism. His poetry is impressive for its technical brilliance, its remarkable linguistic inventiveness and its exploration of rich and diverse themes. His commitment to bush values, which often portrays the city as corrupt, continues a tradition that descends from the nationalism of the 1890s. Consistent preoccupations in his work are a pride in his Gaelic, pioneering ancestry, deeply-held Christian beliefs, respect and affection for the Australian character, particularly in its laconic 'quality of sprawl', the importance of the land as a spirit country and the dignity and wisdom of the ordinary person - reflected in the titles of some of his published volumes (The Peasant Mandarin, The Weatherboard Cathedral, The Vernacular Republic) and captured in poems such as 'The Mitchells'. A nationalist and republican, he sees his writing as helping to define, in cultural and spiritual terms, what it means to be Australian (Peter Alexander, Encyclopedia of World Biography. New York: McGraw Hill, 1992).

In 1974 Murray secured a forty acre selection block just a few miles from where he spent his boyhood. He moved there with his family in 1986; The Idyll Wheel reflects his sense of joyful renewal at this return to what he describes as the 'country ...[of my] mind' ('Evening Alone at Bunyah'). Murray continued to live in Bunyah until his death in 2019.

Les Murray was made an honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1999. He received an honorary D. Litt. from the University of New England and was a member of the Order of Australia. He was also the patron of the Mildura Writers Festival.

Exhibitions

17022329
18005672
10979566

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Waiting for the Past Collingwood : Black Inc. , 2015 8192786 2015 selected work poetry

'Les Murray's new volume of poems – his first in five years – continues his use of molten language. From 'The Black Beaches' to 'Radiant Pleats, Mulgoa', from 'High Speed Trap Space' to 'The Electric, 1960', this is verse that renews and transforms our sense of the world.

''No poet has ever travelled like this, whether in reality or simply in mind … Seeing the shape or hearing the sound of one thing in another, he finds forms'—Clive James, The Monthly'

' (Publication summary)

2015 winner Queensland Literary Awards Judith Wright Calanthe Award
2016 winner Festival Awards for Literature (SA) Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature South Australian Literary Awards John Bray Award for Poetry
2015 longlisted Colin Roderick Award
2016 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards Poetry
y separately published work icon Taller When Prone Melbourne : Black Inc. , 2010 Z1679100 2010 selected work poetry 'Taller When Prone is Les Murray's first volume of new poems since 2006's The Biplane Houses. With characteristic grace and dexterity, these poems combine a mastery of form with a matchless ear for the Australian vernacular. Many evoke rural life here and abroad - its rhythms and rituals, the natural world, the landscape and the people who have shaped it. There are traveller's tales, elegies, meditative fragments and satirical sketches. Above all there is Murray's astonishing versatility, on display here at its exhilarating best.' (From the publisher's website.)
2012 winner Festival Awards for Literature (SA) Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature South Australian Literary Awards John Bray Award for Poetry
2010 shortlisted Queensland Premier's Literary Awards Arts Queensland Judith Wright Calanthe Prize for Poetry
2010 shortlisted The Age Book of the Year Award Dinny O'Hearn Poetry Prize

Known archival holdings

Albinski 164
National Library of Australia (ACT)
Last amended 30 Apr 2019 12:30:41
Influence on:
After Watching a Documentary Interview of Les Murray by Bob Ellis. Maurice Strandgard , 2002 single work poetry
Quintets for Twiggy Peter Goldsworthy , 1984 single work poetry
Other mentions of "" in AustLit:
    X