Synopses & Reviews
A wonderful new collection by a wizard of contemporary poetry
Everything widens with distance, in this perspective.
The dog's paws, trotting, rotate his end of infinity
and dam water feels a shiver few willow drapes share.
Bright leaks through their wigwam re-purple the skinny beans
then rapidly the light tops treetops and is shortened
into a day. Everywhere stands pat beside its shadow
for the great bald radiance never seen in dreams.
-from "Aurora Prone"
In July 1996, the Australian press reported that after three weeks in a coma, the country's greatest poet, Les Murray, was again "conscious and verbal." Shortly thereafter, Murray resumed his work in words, and over the next four years he wrote these sixty-five poems, which, in their different ways, literally or sensually, replay that dreamy announcement of the perpetually waking world. Conscious and Verbal is one of the legendary poet's richest, fullest, and most imaginative books to date.
Review
"A necessary poetic intelligence, one that has ventured far on the prow of his continent and made its language his own." --Albert Mobilio,
The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
A wonderful new collection by a wizard of contemporary poetryEverything widens with distance, in this perspective.
The dog's paws, trotting, rotate his end of infinity
and dam water feels a shiver few willow drapes share.
Bright leaks through their wigwam re-purple the skinny beans
then rapidly the light tops treetops and is shortened
into a day. Everywhere stands pat beside its shadow
for the great bald radiance never seen in dreams.
-from "Aurora Prone"
In July 1996, the Australian press reported that after three weeks in a coma, the country's greatest poet, Les Murray, was again "conscious and verbal." Shortly thereafter, Murray resumed his work in words, and over the next four years he wrote these sixty-five poems, which, in their different ways, literally or sensually, replay that dreamy announcement of the perpetually waking world. Conscious and Verbal is one of the legendary poet's richest, fullest, and most imaginative books to date.
About the Author
Les Murray is the author of eight books, including the novel in verse,
Fredy Neptune (FSG, 1999) and
Learning Human: New and Selected Poems (FSG, 2000). He lives on a farm on the north coast of New South Wales, Australia.