More on: Les Murray

Modern coins the sizes of shine swept off my friend’s bureau in Ghent and pocketed by my careless habit— not brown pennies too dull to return they include designer Devlin’s sculpture of the duckbilled animal swimming up to the top swirl and five kangaroo tails mixed to a dollar. When the Irish attained their republic…

Poxes of the sun or of the mind bring the force-ten firestorms. After come same-surname funerals, junked theory, praise of mateship. Love the gum forest, camp out in it but death hosts your living in it, brother. You need buried space and cellars have a convict fetor: only pubs kept them. Houses shook them off…

i.m. Matt Laffan 1970–2009 Four villages in Ireland knew never to mingle their blood but such lore gets lost in the emigrations. Matt Laffan’s parents learned it in their marriage of genes they would not share again. They raised him up through captaincies and law degrees. He exalted them with his verve and clarities, sat…