Synopses & Reviews
This is Les Murrays first new volume of poems since Poems the Size of Photographs in 2002. In it we find Murray at his nearmiraculous best. The collection—named for a kind of house distinctive to Murrays native Australia—exhibits both his unfailing grace as a writer and his ability to write in any voice, style, or genre: there are story poems, puns extended to poem length, history—and myths in miniature, aphoristic fragments, and domestic portraits. As ever, Murrays evocation of the natural world is unparalleled in its inventiveness and virtuosity. The Biplane Houses is ardent, eloquent, enchanting poetry.
Review
“The most impressive thing about the new poems [in
The Biplane Houses] is their capacity, writing ‘with a whole heart, to find the pathos in unlikely subjects.” —Dan Chiasson,
The New Yorker “The best writer of poetry in English.” —Fraser Sutherland, The Globe and Mail
“The Biplane Houses offers challenges and pleasures to readers who appreciate that ‘punning moves toward music.” —Alexandra Yurkovsky, San Francisco Chronicle
Synopsis
Les Murray' s first new book since "Poems the Size of Photographs "(2002) finds him at his near-miraculous best. Where that book and the book-length poem "Fredy Neptune "(1999) were animated by Murray' s choice of a single mode of approach (the short poem, the modern epic), this one calls on his ability to write in any voice, style, and genre: there are story poems, wordplays, history-- and myth-makings, domestic portraits, and Australian landscapes (such as the one that gives the book its title). "The Biplane Houses "is evidence of a great poet in top form.
About the Author
Les Murray is the author of twelve books of poetry. Subhuman Redneck Poems (FSG, 1997) received the T. S. Eliot Prize, and in 1998 Queen Elizabeth presented him with the Queens Gold Medal for Poetry. He lives on a farm on the north coast of New South Wales, Australia.