An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow single work   poetry   "The word goes round Repins, the murmur goes round Lorenzinis,"
  • Author:agent Les Murray http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/murray-les
First known date: 1967 Issue Details: First known date: 1967... 1967 An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow
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Notes

  • In Twelve Poets, 1950-1970 the date 1967 and 'Penarth' is printed after the poem, suggesting that this is the date and place it was written.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Notes:
Minor title variations appear in texts
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Weatherboard Cathedral Les Murray , Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1969 Z304767 1969 selected work poetry Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1969 pg. 47-48
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australian Poetry Now Thomas Shapcott (editor), South Melbourne : Sun Books , 1970 Z53916 1970 anthology poetry South Melbourne : Sun Books , 1970 pg. 75-76
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Twelve Poets, 1950-1970 12 Poets, 1950-1970 Alexander Craig (editor), Milton : Jacaranda Press , 1971 Z77157 1971 anthology poetry Milton : Jacaranda Press , 1971 pg. 206-207
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Penguin Book of Australian Verse Harry Payne Heseltine (editor), Ringwood Harmondsworth : Penguin , 1972 Z334403 1972 anthology poetry Selection of works by Australian poets from Charles Harpur (1813-1868) to Charles Buckmaster (b. 1951). Ringwood Harmondsworth : Penguin , 1972 pg. 442-444
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Selected Poems : The Vernacular Republic Les Murray , Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1976 Z303467 1976 selected work poetry Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1976 pg. 24-25
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    y separately published work icon The Golden Apples of the Sun : Twentieth Century Australian Poetry Chris Wallace-Crabbe (editor), Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 1980 Z62463 1980 anthology poetry

    'A collection of the best poetry of the twentieth century; Hope - Wright - Slessor - Webb - Harwood - Murray.' (Publication summary)

    Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 1980
    pg. 185-186
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Collins Book of Australian Poetry Rodney Hall , Sydney : Collins , 1981 Z542215 1981 anthology poetry Sydney : Collins , 1981 pg. 334-335
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Vernacular Republic : Poems 1961-1981 Les Murray , Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1982 Z300706 1982 selected work poetry Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1982 pg. 30-32
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The World's Contracted Thus J. A. McKenzie (editor), J. K. McKenzie (editor), Richmond : Heinemann Education Australia , 1983 Z174491 1983 anthology poetry Richmond : Heinemann Education Australia , 1983 pg. 370-371
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Illustrated Treasury of Australian Verse Beatrice Davis , Melbourne : Nelson , 1984 Z315151 1984 anthology poetry biography Melbourne : Nelson , 1984 pg. 258-259
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Cross-Country : A Book of Australian Verse John Barnes (editor), Brian McFarlane (editor), Richmond : Heinemann , 1984 Z900285 1984 anthology poetry (taught in 1 units) Richmond : Heinemann , 1984 pg. 205-206
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon My Country : Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years Leonie Kramer (editor), Sydney : Lansdowne , 1985 Z1067493 1985 anthology poetry short story Sydney : Lansdowne , 1985 pg. 632-633
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Anthology of Australian Religious Poetry Les Murray (editor), Blackburn : Collins Dove , 1986 Z212505 1986 anthology poetry Blackburn : Collins Dove , 1986 pg. 100-101
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Selected Poems Les Murray , Manchester : Carcanet , 1986 Z796575 1986 selected work poetry Manchester : Carcanet , 1986 pg. 12-13
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Cross-Country : A Book of Australian Verse John Barnes (editor), Brian McFarlane (editor), Richmond : Heinemann , 1984 Z900285 1984 anthology poetry (taught in 1 units) Richmond : Heinemann Education Australia , 1988 pg. 205-206
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Faber Book of Modern Australian Verse Vincent Buckley (editor), London : Faber , 1991 Z563845 1991 anthology poetry war literature satire humour London : Faber , 1991 pg. 196-197
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon From the Republic of Conscience : An International Anthology of Poetry Kerry Flattley (editor), Chris Wallace-Crabbe (editor), Flemington : Aird Books Amnesty International , 1992 Z442383 1992 anthology poetry satire Flemington : Aird Books Amnesty International , 1992 pg. 148-149
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Collected Poems Les Murray , Port Melbourne : Heinemann Australia , 1994 Z422024 1994 selected work poetry Port Melbourne : Heinemann Australia , 1994 pg. 29-30
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon An Anthology of Australian Literature Hoju munhak chonjip Ch'oe Chin-yong (editor), Cynthia Van Den Driesen (editor), Seoul : Hansin Munhwasa , 1995 Z994880 1995 anthology poetry short story Seoul : Hansin Munhwasa , 1995 pg. 252-253
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Illustrated Treasury of Australian Verse Beatrice Davis , Melbourne : Nelson , 1984 Z315151 1984 anthology poetry biography Sydney : State Library of New South Wales Press , 1996 pg. 258-259
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Killing the Black Dog : Essay and Poems Les Murray , Leichhardt : Federation Press , 1997 Z483382 1997 selected work poetry prose

    'Killing the Black Dog is Les Murray's courageous account of his struggle with depression, accompanied by poems specially selected by the author. Since the first edition appeared in 1997, hosts of readers have drawn insight from his account of the disease, its social effects and its origins in his family's history.

    'As Murray writes in this revised and updated edition, the title was premature. He had mistaken a remission for a cure, and thought himself freed from the severe depressive illness which had twice invaded his life. Now, in a new afterword, he describes a relapse, but also shares some of the fruits of his further contemplation. He shows gratitude for help previously unacknowledged, and describes how patches of daylight now balance out those of darkness in his life. A further half dozen poems have been added, reflecting a more complex understanding of depression and its role in the lives of its sufferers.' (From Black Inc.'s website, abstract for the revised edition.)

    Leichhardt : Federation Press , 1997
    pg. 27-28
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon New Selected Poems Les Murray , Potts Point : Duffy and Snellgrove , 1998 Z918005 1998 selected work poetry Potts Point : Duffy and Snellgrove , 1998 pg. 4-5
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon New Selected Poems Les Murray , Potts Point : Duffy and Snellgrove , 1998 Z918005 1998 selected work poetry New York (City) : Farrar Straus and Giroux , 2000 pg. 6-7
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Les Murray Jason Clapham , 2001- Z910272 2001- website Les Murray's official website. Contains biographical and bibliographical information, extracts from critical studies new poetry and links to other online resouces with reviews and interviews. 2001-
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Learning Human : New Selected Poems Les Murray , Manchester : Carcanet , 2001 Z1153302 2001 selected work poetry Manchester : Carcanet , 2001 pg. 4-5
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Learning Human : Selected Poems of Les Murray Les Murray , Potts Point : Duffy and Snellgrove , 2003 Z1147830 2003 selected work poetry Potts Point : Duffy and Snellgrove , 2003 pg. 3-5
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Selected Poems Les Murray , Melbourne : Black Inc. , 2007 Z1434567 2007 selected work poetry (taught in 2 units) 'Selected Poems ... comprises what Murray himself considers his most successfully realised poems, drawn from all his collections up to and including The Biplane Houses but not including his two verse novels.' (Publisher's blurb) Melbourne : Black Inc. , 2007 pg. 4-5
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Harbour City Poems : Sydney in Verse, 1788-2008 Martin Langford (editor), Glebe : Puncher and Wattmann , 2009 Z1590539 2009 anthology poetry (taught in 1 units) 'From colonial origins to vibrant metropolis, Sydney has been portrayed with great liveliness and precision by its poets. This anthology's range extends from the foot of the Blue Mountains through the suburban heartlands to the harbour and the beach, incorporating numerous - and often conflicting - interpretations and images of the city. This is the first collection of Sydney-specific poems for twenty years. It includes such classics as Slessor's "Five Bells" and favourites like "Clancy of the Overflow" as well as a generous selection of very contemporary work and older verse tracing back to the town's verse.' (Publisher's blurb) Glebe : Puncher and Wattmann , 2009 pg. 90-92
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Best 100 Poems of Les Murray Les Murray , Collingwood : Black Inc. , 2012 Z1897512 2012 selected work poetry 'From his life’s work so far, spanning more than four decades, Les Murray has selected these 100 poems, his personal best. Including classics such as 'The Broad Bean Sermon', 'An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow' and 'The Dream of Wearing Shorts Forever', this elegant hardback is guaranteed to delight Murray fans and introduce new readers to his work. This is a wonderful gift, and a treasure trove of the best poems ever written in Australia.' (From the publisher's website.) Collingwood : Black Inc. , 2012 pg. 3-4
    Note: With first line: The word goes round Repins,
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Love Is Strong as Death Paul Kelly (editor), Melbourne : Hamish Hamilton , 2019 17491295 2019 anthology poetry

    'Paul Kelly’s songs are steeped in poetry. And now he has gathered from around the world the poems he loves – poems that have inspired and challenged him over the years, a number of which he has set to music. This wide-ranging and deeply moving anthology combines the ancient and the modern, the hallowed and the profane, the famous and the little known, to speak to two of literature’s great themes that have proven so powerful in his music: love and death – plus everything in between.

    'Here are poems by Yehuda Amichai, W.H. Auden, Tusiata Avia, Hera Lindsay Bird, William Blake, Bertolt Brecht, Constantine Cavafy, Alison Croggon, Mahmoud Darwish, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Ali Cobby Eckermann, James Fenton, Thomas Hardy, Kevin Hart, Gwen Harwood, Seamus Heaney, Philip Hodgins, Homer, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Langston Hughes, John Keats, Ono No Komachi, Maxine Kumin, Philip Larkin, Li-Young Lee, Norman MacCaig, Paula Meehan, Czeslaw Milosz, Les Murray, Pablo Neruda, Sharon Olds, Ovid, Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Porter, Rumi, Anne Sexton, William Shakespeare, Izumi Shikibu, Warsan Shire, Kenneth Slessor, Wislawa Szymborska, Máire Mhac an tSaoi, Ko Un, Walt Whitman, Judith Wright, W.B. Yeats and many more.'

    Source: Publisher's blurb.

    Melbourne : Hamish Hamilton , 2019
Alternative title: Cielarko Komplete Ordinara
Language: Esperanto
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australia Antologio Alan Towsey (editor), Pisa : Edistudio , 1988 Z1200264 1988 anthology poetry novel prose short story Anthology of poems and extracts from literary works by Australian authors, translated by various people into Esperanto. Works have been indexed if the extract could be positively identified. Other translations include the works of Charles Harpur, Rolf Boldrewood, Henry Kendall, Joseph Furphy, Marcus Clarke, Henry Lawson, Steele Rudd, Christopher Brennan, Walter Murdoch, C. E. W. Bean, Frank Dalby Davison, R. D. Fitzgerald, Douglas Stewart, David Campbell, Donald Horne, Dick Roughsey, Peter Carey, Robert Drewe, Andrew Lansdown and Peter Dodds McCormick. Pisa : Edistudio , 1988 pg. 372-374

Works about this Work

‘Something New at Hand’ : Australian Literature and the Sacred Lyn McCredden , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Routledge Companion to Australian Literature 2020; (p. 274-281)
I’m the Autistic One but I’m Not the Weeper Robert Norton (interviewer), 2016 single work interview
— Appears in: Rob Norton 2016;

'An interview with Les and Valerie Murray in 2016 at their home in Bunyah, NSW.'

Is There an Australian Pastoral Poetry? Andrew Taylor , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Le Simplegadi , November no. 14 2015; (p. 38-51)
Pastoral was common as a European literary genre from the Renaissance until the eighteenth century. It existed in other artistic forms as well, especially in the visual arts, and after its demise as a distinct genre elements of it persisted into the twentieth century, for example in music. With the colonial spread of European culture the pastoral influence also extended into other countries, with a mixed fate. Recently, the term Pastoral has come back into prominence in literature in English, not only in Great Britain but also, notably in the USA and Australia, with the growth of writing motivated by ecological involvement with the natural world, especially landscape. This has led to re-definitions of the term Pastoral in the last few decades. A number of Australian poets are looked at to see whether, and how, their writing about landscape might relate to, or incorporate elements of the Pastoral. The Australian poet John Kinsella, in particular, has been a widely published spokesperson for a new definition of Pastoral. His published works trace his move from a politically activist anti-colonialist redefinition of Pastoral towards a quieter, more harmonious, and essentially ethical engagement with the natural world.
My Intervention (in Cowdy) Phillip Hall , 2015 single work autobiography
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 February no. 49.0 2015;
The Solid Mandala and Patrick White’s Late Modernity Nicholas Birns , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Transnational Literature , November vol. 4 no. 1 2011;
'This essay contends that the Australian novelist Patrick White (1912-1990) presents, in his novel The Solid Mandala (1966), a prototypical evocation of late modernity that indicates precisely why and how it was different from the neoliberal and postmodern era that succeeded it. Late modernity is currently emerging as a historical period, though still a nascent and contested one. Robert Hassan speaks of the 1950-1970 era as a period which, in its 'Fordist' mode of production maintained a certain conformity yet held off the commoditisation of later neoliberalism's 'network-driven capitalism'. This anchors the sense of 'late modernity,' that will operate in this essay, though my sense of the period also follows on definitions of the term established, in very different contexts, by Edward Lucie-Smith and Tyrus Miller.' (Author's introduction)
Afterword Les Murray , 1971 single work
— Appears in: Twelve Poets, 1950-1970 1971; (p. 218-220)
The Impossible Infinite : Les Murray, Poetry, and the Sacred Lyn McCredden , 2005 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 19 no. 2 2005; (p. 166-171)
Examines the poetry of Les Murray and finds an 'awareness, a coming to realize that it is impossible to speak of God, even as God is represented, imaged, mimicked, and called on...the very closest the poetry comes to the sacred'. (p.171)
'Isn't There a Poem about This, Mr de Mille?' : On Quotation, Camp and Colonial Distancing Ross Chambers , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , vol. 23 no. 4 2008; (p. 377-391)
An Absolutely Ordinary Poem? : Les Murray's 'An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow' David Carter , 1984 single work criticism
— Appears in: Viewpoints : H.S.C. English Literature , no. 85 1984; (p. 60-63)
The Solid Mandala and Patrick White’s Late Modernity Nicholas Birns , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Transnational Literature , November vol. 4 no. 1 2011;
'This essay contends that the Australian novelist Patrick White (1912-1990) presents, in his novel The Solid Mandala (1966), a prototypical evocation of late modernity that indicates precisely why and how it was different from the neoliberal and postmodern era that succeeded it. Late modernity is currently emerging as a historical period, though still a nascent and contested one. Robert Hassan speaks of the 1950-1970 era as a period which, in its 'Fordist' mode of production maintained a certain conformity yet held off the commoditisation of later neoliberalism's 'network-driven capitalism'. This anchors the sense of 'late modernity,' that will operate in this essay, though my sense of the period also follows on definitions of the term established, in very different contexts, by Edward Lucie-Smith and Tyrus Miller.' (Author's introduction)
Last amended 29 Jun 2023 11:20:09
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