Les Murray

Leslie Allan Murray (b. 17 October 1938) is an Australian poet and critic. He was born in Nabiac, New South Wales.

He went in 1957 to the University of Sydney, to read modern languages. There he became a Roman Catholic convert. He became a professional translator, without completing a degree. He became a full-time writer in 1969, having spent some time travelling and completing his degree course.

He also edited the magazine Poetry Australia, and served as literary editor of Quadrant.

Works

• The Ilex Tree (1965) (with Geoffrey Lehmann) poems
• The Weatherboard Cathedral (1969) poems
• Poems Against Economics (1972)
• Lunch and Counter Lunch (1974)
• The Vernacular Republic Selected Poems, (1976)
• Ethnic Radio (1978) poems
• The Peasant Mandarin (1978) prose
• The Boys Who Stole the Funeral (1980) verse novel
• Equanimities (1982) poems
• The Vernacular Republic: Poems 1961–1981 (1982),
• The People's Otherworld (1983) poems
• Persistence in Folly (1984) prose
• The Daylight Moon (1987), poems
• The Idyll Wheel (1989) poems
• Dog Fox Field (1990) poems
• Blocks and Tackles (1990) prose
• The Rabbiter's Bounty (1991)
• Translations from the Natural World (1992) poems
• Subhuman Redneck Poems (1996)
• A Working Forest (1997) prose
• Fredy Neptune (1998) poetry
• Conscious & Verbal (2000) poetry
• Poems the Size of Photographs (2002) poetry