On The Genius of Les Murray single work   essay  
Issue Details: First known date: 2019... 2019 On The Genius of Les Murray
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The unofficial poet laureate of Australia Les Murray died in April 2019. I first met him at the Adelaide Arts Festival in the early 70s where i asked Ted Hughes did he kill Sylvia Plath, cos i couldn’t see how come he was in Australia out on bail. After a few other confrontations, i found myself alongside Les Murray, and he said that before i left poetry i’d make a big splash — and i remember turning to him and thinking he better not jump in the pool or there won’t be any water left. He may have been a good poet ‘with a genius for language’ as John Kinsella said but he had ‘some terrible politics’. Elsewhere i’ve talked about Les’s supposed decadency from the great James Murray the lexicographer who gave us the dictionary ‘proper’ — more foundation stories? — and my reaction to his appropriating and usurping the ‘ethnic’ debate by taking centre-stage with a book entitled Ethnic Radio. This ‘self-styled bard of the people’ even claimed be a descendant of Aboriginal stock — he seemed to be everything — a great publicist being No 1.'  (Introduction)

Notes

  • Epigraph: Tell arts they have no soundness,
    But vary by esteeming;
    Tell schools they want profoundness,
    And stand too much on seeming.

    -Sir Walter Ralegh

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Last amended 3 Jun 2019 08:26:21
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