'Gerald Murnane turns to poetry at the end of his literary career, writing frank, disarming poems that traverse the rich span of his life.
'I esteem / above all poems or passages of prose / those that put a lump in my throat. — Gerald Murnane, ‘The Darkling Thrush’
'Gerald Murnane, now in his eightieth year, began his writing career as a poet. After many years as a writer of fiction, he only returned to poetry a few years ago when he moved to Goroke, in the Western Districts of Victoria, after the death of his wife. The forty-five poems collected here are in a strikingly different mode to his fiction — without framing or digressions, and with very few images, they speak openly to the reader of the author’s memories, beliefs and experiences. They are for this reason an important addition to his internationally recognised body of fiction, most recently Border Districts and Collected Short Fiction, published by Giramondo.
'The poems include tributes to his mother and father and to his family, and to places that have played a formative role in his life, like Gippsland, Bendigo, Warrnambool, the Western Districts, and of course Goroke. Especially moving are his poems dedicated to authors who have influenced him — Lesbia Harford and Thomas Hardy, William Carlos Williams, Henry Handel Richardson, Marcel Proust, and with particular force, the eighteenth-century poet John Clare, who gives the collection its title, revered ‘not only for his writings / but for his losing his reason when / he was forced from the district he had wanted as his for life.’' (Publication summary)
'What an odd thing it is that Gerald Murnane, the great Australian minimalist who modulates the monotonies of his flawless sentences the way Rothko modulates his shades of colour, the 80-year-old Australian writer touted as an outsider (but less so now) for the Nobel Prize in Literature, should produce such a strange yet revealing book of poems.' (Introduction)
'Gerald Murnane’s latest literary offering, Green Shadows and Other Poems, is the octogenarian’s poignant homage to a life spent in rural Victoria. This forty-five poem collection is deeply personal, and a departure from Murnane’s previous novels, short stories, and 2015 memoir, Something for the Pain. After a lengthy hiatus from poetry, he returned to the form after moving to inland Goroke in 2009 upon the death of his wife. There he took up residence in a shed in his son’s backyard.' (Introduction)
'There has been a long and often troubled history of poets writing novels and novelists writing poetry. The skills needed are very different and equally hard to learn. Few writers have made equal careers in both. If they do, it’s usually the novels that receive most attention. (Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje spring to mind.) Many major novelists, however, had some poetry among their early work. F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner started penning Keats imitations. Some novelists, like David Foster, have put out a book of poetry, had it negatively reviewed, and have then returned, with some chagrin, to prose. Similarly, some poets’ novels are dismissed for their ‘poetic prose’. There is a strong tendency among poets and novelists (even among their reviewers) to ‘protect their own turf’, as it were.' (Introduction)
'Gerald Murnane’s latest literary offering, Green Shadows and Other Poems, is the octogenarian’s poignant homage to a life spent in rural Victoria. This forty-five poem collection is deeply personal, and a departure from Murnane’s previous novels, short stories, and 2015 memoir, Something for the Pain. After a lengthy hiatus from poetry, he returned to the form after moving to inland Goroke in 2009 upon the death of his wife. There he took up residence in a shed in his son’s backyard.' (Introduction)
'What an odd thing it is that Gerald Murnane, the great Australian minimalist who modulates the monotonies of his flawless sentences the way Rothko modulates his shades of colour, the 80-year-old Australian writer touted as an outsider (but less so now) for the Nobel Prize in Literature, should produce such a strange yet revealing book of poems.' (Introduction)
'Gerald Murnane’s insular, self-reflexive and obsessive style of essayistic fiction has attracted special praise of late. However, while The New York Times may have described him as “the greatest living English-language writer most people have never heard of”, Murnane’s first poetry collection, Green Shadows and Other Poems, is not exactly a heavyweight affair.' (Introduction)
'There has been a long and often troubled history of poets writing novels and novelists writing poetry. The skills needed are very different and equally hard to learn. Few writers have made equal careers in both. If they do, it’s usually the novels that receive most attention. (Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje spring to mind.) Many major novelists, however, had some poetry among their early work. F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner started penning Keats imitations. Some novelists, like David Foster, have put out a book of poetry, had it negatively reviewed, and have then returned, with some chagrin, to prose. Similarly, some poets’ novels are dismissed for their ‘poetic prose’. There is a strong tendency among poets and novelists (even among their reviewers) to ‘protect their own turf’, as it were.' (Introduction)
