Ephemera with Roots: Les Murray’s Last Poems

Les Murray didn’t write this book—which is to say that he didn’t get to finish it. The title, as well as the organization and final versions of some poems, were chosen by Jamie Grant, husband to Murray’s literary agent. However, before Murray’s death, he said he had “about three-quarters of a new book ready” (xi), according to Grant’s helpful prefatory note. Grant compiled the rest from handwritten drafts and arranged them to the best of his knowledge of what seemed cohesive with the collection as Murray left it.

Continuous Creation: Last Poems by Les Murray. Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2022). 96 pp. $25

Murray’s distinguished career makes for a meaningful legacy, regardless of the quality of these last poems. That said, they reveal a poet who took his craft seriously to the very end. Despite Grant’s observation that the poet’s mental faculties appeared to be in decline during his final months, these poems reflect both themes and formal techniques often consistent with the rest of his work. Since several were also published in literary journals during Murray’s lifetime—combined with advanced drafts of other works in progress that often read as more-or-less “finished” poems—it is fair to see Continuous Creation as a worthy study in the final reflections of one of Australia’s most significant contemporary poets. Grant deserves much of the credit for this cohesiveness because his sensitive approach to editing the collection creates a reflective space for readers prepared to give their full attention to the landscape Murray presents.

Such attention seems to be a constant goal in these poems. Whether describing rural landscapes or reminiscing on long-past memories, Murray’s poetics requires readers to slow down, take a breath, and consider both the literal scene and what lies beneath it. His work often focused on our human relationship to place, and this theme shines through in simple yet vivid details. Lines like “Sweat’s their archaic soap” (20) or the description of a cane knife’s “musical gasps” (29) as it cuts through the bush bring heightened attention to the sensual experience of inhabiting a body as well as a physical environment. In that respect, one can see in Murray’s work what could literally be called a “global” poetics: concerned with latitudes, as in “The Solstice Vote” or “Steam Bath World,” always aware of the boundaries that ground us while keeping us constrained within human and geographical limits. The opening passage in “The Solstice Vote” exemplifies many of these concerns: 

In June, the Northern hemisphere
lies around in gardens,
crust of rotting gold.

Beetroot, garlic and watermelon 
are sovereign for blood pressure, 
it’s said, though after April 

melon tastes like floodwater 
in my latitudes. 

Here, among other places, Murray evokes a certain William Carlos Williams sort of quality, similar to the American poet’s shorter works and reminiscent of the liminal space Williams cultivates in Paterson. The reader follows Murray’s intuitive train of thought as he moves from this earthy space to reflect briefly upon current and past political events before drifting back into the present and considering it the “perfect day” for regionally sourced fish and drinks. By framing his passing commentary on British politics within these personal, physical observations, Murray prioritizes the individual over a more detached approach to place. 

Along these lines, Murray is also frequently preoccupied with history—personal and cultural—befitting this phase of his life, though such themes can resonate with readers at any age. Several poems hover in nostalgic spaces, recalling long-past memories that remain ever-present for the speaker. Throughout, Murray reflects explicitly and implicitly on how his decision to “[move] quietly home to the bush” (10) has shaped both his personal life and his poetic career in fundamental ways.

Formally speaking, the poems in this collection demonstrate an eclectic and organic approach. Murray often employs what could be called “spotty” or “sneaky” rhyme—often asymmetrical, such elements tend to sneak up on the reader. It requires an ongoing attentiveness that simultaneously encourages an intuitive reading, as this type of rhyme evokes a subtle rhythm that can be more felt than understood or analyzed logically. As a result, it does not come across as sloppy or merely accidental but rather indicates a more emotional logic at play. In a similar way, Murray enjoys utilizing unusual syntax and punctuation, adapting these elements to suit the nature of the poem rather than remaining overly constrained by them. He tends to follow what he himself dubs a “rough metre” (10), which can also echo a more musical quality as the flow shifts from one poem to the next; one may sound almost like a nursery rhyme or a pub song, while another hovers in a dreamlike space of fragmentary free verse. For attentive readers, this effect can prompt us to reconsider the multiple possibilities within poetry for deepening our capacity to appreciate how language can make us more attuned to our experience of the world.

Despite Murray’s eclectic poetics, some consistent trends emerge. He often favors tercets and quatrains, though the poems range in length from three or four lines to a few pages. The later poems also tend to show some consistent formal elements even though Grant gathered many of them from drafts or fragments. As a result, reading Continuous Creation can feel a bit like coming across clippings or snapshots, which Murray happened to collect in large numbers. Grant chose the title from a simple, four-line poem (from Murray’s version of the manuscript) that in some ways sums up this idea of what might be called “ephemera with roots”:

We bring nothing into this world 
except our gradual ability 
to create it, out of all that vanishes 
and all that will outlast us. 

Murray’s vision—clearly so often tethered to a particular place, time, and culture—remains vivid in this last collection, despite his fading mental capacity and other physical ailments. Taken as a whole, these poems reflect the culmination of an ever-active mind and spirit continually seeking communion wherever he happens to be. One of the later poems, “On Bushfire Warning Day,” offers this reflection:

Would we come back? 
If the house survived, yes, 
even if all remaining were 
tiles and fuselage metal. 

Erasure might be 
a sort of rebirthing, 
a new tune, higher strung, 
new ceilings for new clouds— 

If we stayed gone 
we’d be pestilent lore, 
present in our past 
crowding the new people. 

Such “erasure” poses little anxiety for someone like Murray because he remains rooted in a place that will long outlast him. He remains “present” through his poems that have left behind signs of survival.