Continuous creation Last poems

According to Jamie Grant, who selected the final third of this posthumous volume, Murray created "the most distinguished body of work produced by any Australian poet." Editor of a leading journal for more than 30 years and adviser to a prime minister, Murray distanced himself from the literary culture of his home country. If he occasionally sounded not sardonic but bitter, the scale does tip towards beauty, generosity, and attentiveness. It is difficult to think of another poet who attended to such a variety of subjects and wrote in so many forms. While the title poem of this volume is not typical--he is usually more expansive and wonderfully chatty--it does capture exactly what makes Murray remarkable: "We bring nothing into this world / except our gradual ability / to create it, out of all that vanishes / and all that will outlast us." This book's first poem, "The Inland Food Bowl," traces the course of the Murray River, Australia's longest. And like that river with which he shares a surname, his work will endure, an unmissable landmark.