'Best of” anthologies are often contentious, but they offer writers the opportunity to be published alongside their peers and to reach a wide readership. It was heartening, then, that Black Inc -following its publication of the “best” essays and stories -inaugurated “The Best Australian Poems” series in 2003, a volume which was edited by Peter Craven and presented generous selections from the work of thirty-eight poets. This year, Les Murray, the long-standing poetry editor of the socially and politically conservative Quadrant magazine and of the impressive New Oxford Book of Australian Verse (first released in 1986 and twice updated), has decided to do things differently. In his introduction to The Best Australian Poems 2004, Murray writes that he “selected from work written and/or published over the last year or so”…' (Introduction)
