The Biplane Houses Poems

This is Les Murray's first new volume of poems sincePoems the Size of Photographsin 2002. In it we find Murray at his nearmiraculous best. The collectionnamed for a kind of house distinctive to Murray's native Australiaexhibits both his unfailing grace as a writer and his ability to write in any voice, style, or genre: there are story poems, puns extended to poem length, historyand myths in miniature, aphoristic fragments, and domestic portraits. As ever, Murray's evocation of the natural world is unparalleled in its inventiveness and virtuosity.The Biplane Housesis ardent, eloquent, enchanting poetry.

Les Murray is the author of twelve books of poetry. Subhuman Redneck Poems (FSG, 1997) received the T. S. Eliot Prize, and in 1998 Queen Elizabeth presented him with the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. He lives on a farm on the north coast of New South Wales, Australia.

“The most impressive thing about the new poems [in The Biplane Houses] is their capacity, writing ‘with a whole heart,’ to find the pathos in unlikely subjects.” —Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker

“The best writer of poetry in English.” —Fraser Sutherland, The Globe and Mail

“The Biplane Houses offers challenges and pleasures to readers who appreciate that ‘punning moves toward music.’” —Alexandra Yurkovsky, San Francisco Chronicle