GeraldMurnane turns to poetry at the end of his literary career, writing frank, disarmingpoems that traverse the rich span of his life.
I esteem / above all poems or passages of prose / those that put a lump in my throat. - Gerald Murnane, 'The Darkling Thrush'
Gerald Murnane, now in his eightieth year,began his writing career as a poet. After many years as a writer of fiction, heonly returned to poetry a few years ago when he moved to Goroke, in the WesternDistricts of Victoria, after the death of his wife. The forty-five poems collectedhere are in a strikingly different mode to his fiction - without framing ordigressions, and with very few images, they speak openly to the reader of theauthor's memories, beliefs and experiences. They are for this reason animportant addition to his internationally recognised body of fiction, mostrecently Border Districts and Collected Short Fiction, published byGiramondo.
The poems include tributes to his motherand father and to his family, and to places that have played a formative rolein his life, like Gippsland, Bendigo, Warrnambool, the Western Districts, andof course Goroke. Especially moving are his poems dedicated to authors who haveinfluenced him - Lesbia Harford and Thomas Hardy, William Carlos Williams, HenryHandel Richardson, Marcel Proust, and with particular force, theeighteenth-century poet John Clare, who gives the collection its title, revered'not only for his writings / but for his losing his reason when / he was forcedfrom the district he had wanted as his for life.'
Praise for Gerald Murnane:
'A strong case could be made for Murnane...as the greatest living English-language writer most people have never heard of.' - New York Times
'No living Australian writer, not even Les Murray, has higher claims to permanence or a richer sense of distinction.' - Sydney Morning Herald
