Continuous Creation. Les Murray. Black Inc.
Reviewed by Michael Byrne
Les Murray, the poet, was born in 1938. He died in 2019. He lived in Bunyah, near Taree in New South Wales. Continuous Creation contained Murray’s last poems and was published posthumously. In Continuous Creation, Murray’s poems were accessible. Also, there were a number of deft short imagist poems in Continuous Creation as well as deft longer poems. Murray also had a useful interest in gossip and yarns. Take ‘Bingham’s Ghost’, about a man that went bush:
Odd times, in moleskins and coat
he’d appear by the Forestry roadside,
moveless, with his pockets pulled out
and patriarchs and other locals
shivered grimly at encounters with him.
Long gone now, he froze many a rider
and silenced whole carloads of revellers.
Murray wrote poetry about interesting folklore. There was also something happening in every line in the extract and the poem. In ‘Weebill’, Murray said a line of words:
Caught a weebill in my car grille,
bird twice the weight of a hefty beetle.
Only heard it when I left the bush.
If it couldn’t home it would likely perish.
Extracted, it whirred off, copse and hollow.
I couldn’t drive after it, couldn’t follow
its speed among parrots and bigger birds.
I braked, and said a line of words.
All wasted. Its cohort would supply
its brood with forage, if it should die.
If not, it would announce its own homecoming
Relearning how to slow and sing.
Murray turned general knowledge into poetry. Also, Murray was kind in the poem. In the poem ‘Break of Autumn’, Murray was also preoccupied with nature:
Crepe myrtles from China
branch-heavy with mauve and rain,
black waterfowl moving ghostly
in grass to the scarlet of their brows
belladonna, belladonna.
The cat reaches under its chin
and switches on its brisk engine.
With ’Break of Autumn’ Murray had a touch of the imagist, whereby Murray created a sense of atmosphere. ‘The Breast Depot’ was likewise:
Seeing dumpy soil
ascend an incline with grey-blue
plastic triangles scattered up it
it’s hard not to think skirmish,
new graves on a battlefield –
but our son, maybe noticing
the drumsticks at the corners
holding the plastics open
around shadowy infant trees
cries I knew it: the mammofarm.
The poem was hilarious. The poem was aptly balanced between Murray’s interpretation of his environs and that of his son. In ‘Dateline’, Murray’s poetry had passion:
Slapped mud makes Saharan cities cool
but this week HIV spared an infant.
Asteroids sped above the fried milk of Canton
but this very week HIV quit an infant.
Murray was humane with the life of a child. It was also an upbeat way to end the penultimate poem in Continuous Creation. Continuous Creation could be considered as an introduction to Murray’s poetry. The clarity was there like never before. His deftness with titles, short imagist poems and humour was there too. Murray’s preoccupation with soldiers, rural life and nature was there also. He also had an intelligent voice. He utilised subject matter which was interesting. Just before he died he was the best poet in Australia. Just before he died he had a full blown legend.
Michael Byrne 