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y separately published work icon Collected Poems : 1961-2002 selected work   poetry  
  • Author:agent Les Murray http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/murray-les
Issue Details: First known date: 2002... 2002 Collected Poems : 1961-2002
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'This volume includes all the poems [the author] wants to preserve, apart from his verse-novel Fredy Neptune, from his first book the Ilex Tree (1965) to Poems the Size of Photographs (2002).' (Back cover 2006 edition.)

Reading Australia

Reading Australia

This work has Reading Australia teaching resources.

Unit Suitable For

Themes

Aboriginality, Australian identity, death, History, natural world/environmentalism, overcoming adversity, prejudice, representation of history

General Capabilities

Ethical understanding, Information and communication technology, Intercultural understanding, Literacy, Personal and social

Cross-curriculum Priorities

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, Sustainability

Notes

  • Dedication: To the glory of God

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Potts Point, Kings Cross area, Inner Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales,: Duffy and Snellgrove , 2002 .
      image of person or book cover 7328209146023945009.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: xxi, 577p. + 1 CD ROMp.
      Note/s:
      • Includes index.
      ISBN: 1876631511
    • Manchester,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Carcanet ,
      2003 .
      Alternative title: New Collected Poems
      Extent: xxi, 577 p.p.
      ISBN: 1857546237 (pbk.)
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Black Inc. , 2006 .
      Extent: xxi, 577p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Includes Index of First Lines and Index of Titles.
      ISBN: 1863952225

Other Formats

  • Also sound recording.

Works about this Work

Meena, the Elephant, in the Kabul Zoo i "The elephant", Subhash Jaireth , 2013 single work poetry
— Appears in: Contemporary Asian Australian Poets 2013; (p. 131-133)
An “Infinitely Flexible” Space : Reading Michael Dransfield’s “Courland Penders” Poems through the Neobaroque and Dobrez’s Theory of “The Pouch” Michael Farrell , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 73 no. 1 2013; (p. 138-154)

This essay 'seeks to find new ways to address Australian poetry, through the example of Michael Dransfield, a controversially significant poet.' (139)

In Search of the Celtic Sunrise John McLaren , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journeying and Journalling : Creative and Critical Meditations on Travel Writing 2010; (p. 37-46)
'The title of this paper caused me a lot of trouble. I thought the one I settled on was brilliant, but unfortunately, when I came to write the paper to go with it, I found difficulty in making a match. For a while it seemed that my search was leading only to a Celtic sunset. However,it did give me a reason to traipse around Wales and Ireland and Scotland and the Canadian Maritimes, even if in Ireland and Scotland the sun I was seeking neither rose nor set, but remained resolutely hidden beneath mists and clouds. I gathered a fair amount of history on my journeying, and the full version of this paper uses this to provide a context for the cultural differences I located in the poetry. There is, however, no time to go into this analysis of the contrasting histories of settlement, and of the distinct economic, political and religious circumstances in the countries of origin. Instead I will ask that you take those matters as given while I concentrate mainly on poets whose work demonstrates the cultural differences that arose from these circumstances.' (Author's introduction, 37)
Alienating Powers : Les Murray's Poetry and Politics Brigid Rooney , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Literary Activists : Australian Writer-Intellectuals and Public Life 2009; (p. 97-118)
The Wide Brown Land : Literary Readings of Space and the Australian Continent Anthony J. Hassall , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australia : Making Space Meaningful 2007; (p. 45-53)
'In his 1987 poem "Louvres" Les Murray speaks of journeys to 'the three quarters of our continent/set aside for mystic poetry" (2002, 239), a very different reading of Australia's inner space to A.D. Hope's 1939 vision of it as '[t]he Arabian desert of the human mind" (1966, 13) In this paper I review the opposed, contradictory ways in which the inner space of Australia has been perceived by Australian writers, and note changes in those literary perceptions, especially in the last fifty years. In that time what was routinely categerised, by Patrick White among others, as the "Dead heart" (1974, 94) - the disappointing desert encountered by nineteenth=century European explorers looking for another America -has been re-mythologised as the "Red Centre," the symbolic, living heart of the continent. What Barcroft Boake's 1897 poem hauntingly portrayed as out where the dead men lie" (140,-2) is now more commonly imagined as a site of spiritual exploration and psychic renewal, a place where Aboriginal identification with the land is respected and even shared. This change was powerfully symbolised in 1985 by the return to the traditional Anangu owners of the title deeds to the renamed Uluru, the great stone sited at the centre of the continent; but while this re-mythologising has been increasingly influential in literary readings, older, more negative constructions of that space as hostile and sterile have persisted, so that contradictory attitudes towards the inner space of Australia continue to be expressed. In reviewing a selection of those readings, I am conscious that they both distort and influence broader cultural perceptions. I am also aware that literary reconstructions of the past reflect both the attitudes of the time depicted and the current attitudes of the writer, and that separating the two is seldom simple. Finally, I am conscious of the connections between literary readings and those in art and film of the kind documented by Roslynn Hanes in her 1998 study Seeking the Centre: the Australian Desert in Literature, Art and Film, and those in television and advertising. I have however, with the exception of the Postscript, limited my paper to literary readings, with an emphasis on works published since Haynes's study.' (Author's abstract p. 45)
Murray's Muse Christopher Bantick , 2003 single work review column
— Appears in: The West Australian , 25 January 2003; (p. 15)

— Review of Collected Poems : 1961-2002 Les Murray , 2002 selected work poetry
Second Look Peter Craven , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 16 February 2003; (p. 8)

— Review of Collected Poems : 1961-2002 Les Murray , 2002 selected work poetry
Reading Les Murray's Collected Poems John Leonard , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: Overland , Spring no. 172 2003; (p. 83-86)

— Review of Collected Poems : 1961-2002 Les Murray , 2002 selected work poetry
[Review] Collected Poems : 1961-2002 and ALS 20:2 and Les Murray Peter Kirkpatrick , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 2 no. 2003; (p. 195-200)

— Review of Les Murray Steven Matthews , 2001 single work criticism ; Collected Poems : 1961-2002 Les Murray , 2002 selected work poetry ; Australian Literary Studies vol. 20 no. 2 October 2001 periodical issue
Always Disappearing David McCooey , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: Westerly , November vol. 48 no. 2003; (p. 74-84)

— Review of Mangroves Laurie Duggan , 2003 selected work poetry ; Collected Poems : 1961-2002 Les Murray , 2002 selected work poetry ; Gwen Harwood : Collected Poems 1943-1995 Gwen Harwood , 2003 collected work poetry ; Wild Surmise Dorothy Porter , 2002 single work novel ; A Break in the Weather John Jenkins , 2003 single work novel ; Portrait in Skin Kevin Brophy , 2002 selected work poetry ; The Fall Jordie Albiston , 2003 selected work poetry ; Anything the Landlord Touches Emma Lew , 2002 selected work poetry
Being John Leonard John Leonard , 2004 single work correspondence
— Appears in: Overland , Autumn no. 174 2004; (p. 5-6)
John Leonard (b.1940) distances himself from John Leonard's review of Les Murray's Collected Poems : 1961-2002
Alienating Powers : Les Murray's Poetry and Politics Brigid Rooney , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Literary Activists : Australian Writer-Intellectuals and Public Life 2009; (p. 97-118)
The Wide Brown Land : Literary Readings of Space and the Australian Continent Anthony J. Hassall , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australia : Making Space Meaningful 2007; (p. 45-53)
'In his 1987 poem "Louvres" Les Murray speaks of journeys to 'the three quarters of our continent/set aside for mystic poetry" (2002, 239), a very different reading of Australia's inner space to A.D. Hope's 1939 vision of it as '[t]he Arabian desert of the human mind" (1966, 13) In this paper I review the opposed, contradictory ways in which the inner space of Australia has been perceived by Australian writers, and note changes in those literary perceptions, especially in the last fifty years. In that time what was routinely categerised, by Patrick White among others, as the "Dead heart" (1974, 94) - the disappointing desert encountered by nineteenth=century European explorers looking for another America -has been re-mythologised as the "Red Centre," the symbolic, living heart of the continent. What Barcroft Boake's 1897 poem hauntingly portrayed as out where the dead men lie" (140,-2) is now more commonly imagined as a site of spiritual exploration and psychic renewal, a place where Aboriginal identification with the land is respected and even shared. This change was powerfully symbolised in 1985 by the return to the traditional Anangu owners of the title deeds to the renamed Uluru, the great stone sited at the centre of the continent; but while this re-mythologising has been increasingly influential in literary readings, older, more negative constructions of that space as hostile and sterile have persisted, so that contradictory attitudes towards the inner space of Australia continue to be expressed. In reviewing a selection of those readings, I am conscious that they both distort and influence broader cultural perceptions. I am also aware that literary reconstructions of the past reflect both the attitudes of the time depicted and the current attitudes of the writer, and that separating the two is seldom simple. Finally, I am conscious of the connections between literary readings and those in art and film of the kind documented by Roslynn Hanes in her 1998 study Seeking the Centre: the Australian Desert in Literature, Art and Film, and those in television and advertising. I have however, with the exception of the Postscript, limited my paper to literary readings, with an emphasis on works published since Haynes's study.' (Author's abstract p. 45)
In Search of the Celtic Sunrise John McLaren , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journeying and Journalling : Creative and Critical Meditations on Travel Writing 2010; (p. 37-46)
'The title of this paper caused me a lot of trouble. I thought the one I settled on was brilliant, but unfortunately, when I came to write the paper to go with it, I found difficulty in making a match. For a while it seemed that my search was leading only to a Celtic sunset. However,it did give me a reason to traipse around Wales and Ireland and Scotland and the Canadian Maritimes, even if in Ireland and Scotland the sun I was seeking neither rose nor set, but remained resolutely hidden beneath mists and clouds. I gathered a fair amount of history on my journeying, and the full version of this paper uses this to provide a context for the cultural differences I located in the poetry. There is, however, no time to go into this analysis of the contrasting histories of settlement, and of the distinct economic, political and religious circumstances in the countries of origin. Instead I will ask that you take those matters as given while I concentrate mainly on poets whose work demonstrates the cultural differences that arose from these circumstances.' (Author's introduction, 37)
A Word or Two to the Contrary Daphne Guinness , 2002 single work column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 24 August 2002; (p. 13)
Last amended 22 May 2017 16:35:56
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