What a gem, Barry. Thanks so much for passing this on. Besides Murray, I
like the laconic intro by Meredith and the opening Vincent Buckley poem
which name-checks the streets of Carlton. The Vernacular Republic contains
that fabulous line about the drought, making it ‘like trying to farm a
road’ and then The Broad Bean Sermon, a favourite, and that one about
working as a translator, improving on machine translations like ‘invisible
lunatic’ for ‘out of mind, out of sight’, That’s as far as I’ve got so far.
Malouf I didn’t bother with - he always sounds so tentative, despite the
undoubted richness of his poems on paper. All three reading in 1980 use
accents which arouse nostalgia in me now as those broad, flat vowels have
retreated as we pick up different tonalities from travel and tv.
Hoo roo,
Bill
https://www.loc.gov/item/91740808/
On Fri, 3 May 2019 at 7:58 am, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Thanks, Barry. Will listen now.
>
> Bill
>
> On Thu, 2 May 2019 at 11:12 pm, Barry Alpert <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> I witnessed Les Murray read his poetry in Washington DC, either at the
>> Folger Shakespeare Library or the Library of Congress. Two separate
>> readings at the LC, on the bill with other Australian writers. One of
>> these, with David Malouf and curated/introduced by that year's "consultant
>> in poetry", William Meredith, can be heard but not seen via:
>>
>> https://www.loc.gov/item/91740808/
>>
>> Barry
>>
>> On Wed, 1 May 2019 12:12:15 +1000, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >Thanks again, Doug, for enriching my Les cache.
>> >
>> >This is the best thing that has come my way if you have time to go into
>> it.
>> >Explains a little, if not to your or probably my satisfaction, some of
>> his
>> >odd political leanings.
>> >
>> >Bill
>> >
>> >https://ramonakoval.com/2019/04/30/les-murray-poet-7-10-38-29-04-19/
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >On Wed, 1 May 2019 at 1:58 am, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> >> He had lots of such stories, Bill, & a generous spirit, although the
>> >> conservatism of his views & religion was something a lot of poets &
>> readers
>> >> who loved the work couldn’t really understand or accept, me among
>> them. I
>> >> first met him in 1984 on my first visit to Oz, introduced by a fellow
>> poet
>> >> who had moved back to Oz from Canada. We shared a bottle of set, I
>> think it
>> >> was, talked poetry (& agreed to disagree about which modern poets we
>> most
>> >> admired) & other things, & exchanged books. I suspect mine resides
>> >> somewhere on his shelves, possibly still unread; our poetics were very
>> >> different. I taught his work on my Australian & New Zealand poetry
>> >> courses.He came to Canada back in 2009, I think, & gave a fine reading
>> to a
>> >> full house here in Edmonton.
>> >>
>> >> Doug
>> >>
>> >> > On Apr 30, 2019, at 6:16 AM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > Good on you, Doug. I never met him but own two of his collections. He
>> >> told
>> >> > this tragic story apparently a while back at the Adelaide Writers’
>> >> Festival.
>> >> >
>> >> > His father always favoured Les’s older brother to take over the
>> family
>> >> > farm. They were out clearing a paddock and came across a huge dead
>> >> gumtree
>> >> > which dad insisted on pushing over. Les said it was rotten and
>> dangerous,
>> >> > don’t do it, but Dad insisted. The tree split, killed the brother and
>> >> Dad
>> >> > always blamed Les for it.
>> >> >
>> >> > Bill
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > On Tue, 30 Apr 2019 at 7:21 am, Douglas Barbour <
>> [log in to unmask]>
>> >> > wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> >> A huge loss of a huge talent (& man). I met him few times, once in
>> Oz,
>> >> He
>> >> >> did love that ‘sprawl’…
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Doug
>> >> >>
>> >>
>> >> Douglas Barbour
>> >> [log in to unmask]
>> >> https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>> >>
>> >> Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations &
>> Continuations
>> >> 2 (UofAPress).
>> >> Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
>> >> Listen. If (UofAPress):
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> We live in a world of suffering in which evil is rampant, a world whose
>> >> events do not confirm our Being, a world that has to be resisted. Is
>> is in
>> >> this situation that the aesthetic moment offers hope, that we find a
>> >> crystal or a poppy beautiful means that we are less alone, that we are
>> more
>> >> deeply inserted into existence than the course of a single life would
>> lead
>> >> us to believe…The energy of one’s perception become inseparable from
>> the
>> >> energy of creation.
>> >>
>> >> – John Berger
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
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