The Biplane Houses : Poems

This is Les Murray's first new volume of poems since Poems the Size of Photographs in 2002. In it we find Murray at his nearmiraculous best. The collection—named for a kind of house distinctive to Murray's native Australia—exhibits 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, history—and 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 Houses is ardent, eloquent, enchanting poetry.

“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