Five bells Wringing the truth From tapestries Lifelong beliefs
Gold, pure truth Beyond doubts Offered as proof Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Silver, molded truth
LES MURRAY Les Murray (b.1938) died in April 2019 at Taree, not far from his family home at Bunyah on the mid-north coast of NSW, Australia.
Les was a colossus of Australian and world poetry. Along with collaborator Geoffrey Lehmann, he published his first poetry in The Ibex Tree in 1965. Over the next fifty-five years Les published thirty-five works of poetry along with collecting and editing six works and penning ten verse and prose collections.
Les is remembered not only as a Poet Laureate but also as:
an autodidact with some ‘terrible politics” John Kinsella, The Guardian having an anti-establishment streak (that) helped reinforce the idea that his poetry had a larrikin quality to it. Deakin University literature professor Lyn McCredden a sub-human redneck, Les Murray
In the 1990s, a proposal to name a park in Chatswood in honour of Les was squashed by Councillors of Willoughby City Council on the basis that ‘he is not dead’ and concern that ‘he might say something embarrassing’.
Jolly Roger, the Pilot Stealing letters From behind the skenes Painting in words Phrases and insights Reassembling
Sitting on a farm Is a far cry From days behind a desk Sifting the rest, from What Sydney and Melbourne Offer Reassigning
Ken would be proud Born and bread Where Valerie Adorned and fed Lustre lights, shining Around the table Carousing
Life throws curved balls To be caught and treasured Softly playing in the park Calming, a turbulent mind Accepting the cloak of the buffalo Sublimating form for flowers Awakening
Who dare, save Australia’s greatest Laid down in time Only the omnipotent Time traveler Smelting alphabets Casting
Does coal smoke and bats Represent a conspectus So much to choose So much to chew Over, seeking perfection Layering meaning within style Extracting
Yet fanciful so Running potpourri Gathering chiropterms Into blossoms of gold Leafing wings To they glisten Shining
Olympus of peotic topography Towering mind, body and spirit Shunning relativist fame One mind, condensing time To highlights of achievement Of lesser intellect Overshadowing
FRETTING FOR LES Les Murray married Valerie Morelli from Chatswood. They lived in Chatswood for a number of years with their children. During their time in Chatswood local resident recall that Les would often play with his son, who suffered from Autism, in the local park. Evidently Les had put barb-wire fencing atop the fences of their property to contain his son who tended to wander. Whilst living in Chatswood, Valerie and Les revived a tradition started by another world-class poet, Kenneth Slessor (Five Bells), also from Chatswood. They would host dinner parties for poets, mainly from Sydney and Melbourne. These included Slessor and other recognised poets and literary figures such as Douglas Stewart (Fire on the Snow), Geoffrey Lehmann (his co-conspirator on Murray’s first book of poetry), Christopher Koch, Mark O’Connor, Peter Porter, Peter Goldsworthy, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Alan Gould, Robert Gray, Jamie Grant and his wife Margaret Connolly. Les penned many poems that resonate with imagery of Chatswood and the North Shore: work’s turned its back on sweet brilliance but when they start to loom, these towers disappear. Dusk’s lightswitchers reveal yellow business branching kilotail and haloed with stellar geometry Mirror-glass skyscrapers In addition to Les and Kenneth Slessor, Chatswood and Willoughby has produced an extraordinary number of highly renowned poets, writers and literary figures who either lived in or wrote about the area. This includes Louise Mack, Mona Alexis Brand (Children of the Sun), Tad Orwell (Kangaroo Flat), Lennie Lower (Here’s Luck), Francis Webb (A drum for Ben Boyd), Kenneth Cook (Wake in Fright), Jennifer Rankin (Night ride), Barcroft Boake (Where dead men lie), Kate Grenville (Lillians story),Matthew Reilly (Scarecrow), Henry Lawson, Burnum Burnum (Wildthings),Nancy Wake (The White Mouse), Betty Roland (The touch of silk) and Gwen Meredith (Blue Hills), A move is in train to appropriately commemorate Les’ contribution to Chatswood. Some years ago, a park on the Pacific Highway was re-named Kenneth Slessor Park. Les, along with the ‘co-conspirator’ of his first book of poems (Geoffrey Lehmann) were invited to the opening. Whilst Lehmann attended, Les sent his apologies as he was travelling overseas. In the Foreword of Les’ conspectus of Australian poetry.[1]After describing his rationale for not including many classic poems of many of his selected poets he recounts that ‘you cannot easily leave Slessor’s Five Bells out of an Australian anthology and retain credibility.’ [2]. In his anthology (see above) he selected poets and poems based on poetic experience.[3] This included a swag of poets from the Northern Shore of Sydney where Chatswood is located: Henry Lawson lived in Naremburn on the Northern Shore. It is reported that Lawson, known to have liked a tipple or two would often depart the tram and instead of going home would weave his way down into the bush where he would soend the night in a large cave overhang. Of particular interest is Lawson’s poem ‘Chatswood’ (Lone Pine 1919) purported by some as recounting the way Chatswood got its name. Other’s contest this assertion as a figment of Lawson’s fermented imagination.
Kenneth Slessor who grew up on the corner of Fullers Road and the Pacific Highway, Chatswood whose ‘Second-Class Ballad of the North Shore First’ resonates with the clatter of iron tyres of the NSWGR.
Francis Webb lived in Johnson Street, Chatswood. Francis had attended school in North Sydney and Chatswood. His personal library and collection of 18th and 19th century oil paintings were bequeathed to Chatswood Library. He penned a poecm about the Middle Harbour of the Northern Shore.
Of the various poets that used to attend Les and Valerie’s dinner parties in Chatswood, Les selected to include Mark O’Conner, Peter Goldsworthy, Christopher Koch, Peter Porter, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Alan Gould, Robert Gray, Jamie Grant, Bruce Beaver and Jennifer Rankin..
Other local poets Northern Shore selected by Les as being ‘lively and readable’ include Harley Matthews, Barcroft Boake, Douglas Stewart, Christopher Brennan, Henry Kenndall, Mary Gilmore, RD Fitzgerald, James Devaney, AD Hope, Victor Daley, Robert Adamson, Vivian Smith, James McAuley, Robin Gurr and John Le Gay Brereton.
Les was a Patron of The Concourse at Chatswood, one of Sydney’s pre-eminent entertainment venues and the cultural home of the Northern Shore arts scene.
Terry Fogarty Chatswood May 2019
Terry Fogarty is the author of ‘Voices of the Northern Shore’[4] a literary gazetteer of the authors and poets of the northern shore of Sydney. His own poetry is both philosophically eclectic yet seamless. Grounded in place, personality and time he braids literary tapestries that can be both confronting yet calming. Recurrent themes from theatres of the absurd are seasoned with the frailties of written expression where he often subpoenas truth.
[1] Murray, L (1986/96), The New Oxfor Book of Australian Verse, Oxford University Press Australia [2] Op. cit p.xxiii [3] Op. cit. p. xxi [4] Fogarty, T (2008), Voices of the Northern Shore – a literary gazetter, Boake Press, Chatswood.
Barcoft Boake Disappearing amongst the trees Lacking for work Bereft by love lost
Tragic end to enthralling life Folly, to swing by a whip Without the applause all round ‘ Depressed by Depression, depression? Spawned poems of the bush Bushman on a horse
Life follows Songlines 