To begin with Murry uses colour so that the images blossom in your mind. He is the sort of poet that is both dexterous without needing to create puzzles. His writing works on many levels but for me the first and most important level is the simplest. I like to get something out of a poem on the first reading. Yes I love to reread and reread poems getting more each time but the first read matters to me. I dis-guard books within 100 pages if it is not pulling me in, I turn the television over if I am not swayed by characters dialogue, I've left the cinema before the end of a film.
Take Murry's poem performance dealing with a single night. He uses the metaphor of a firework display to compare to a night out. I can see the rocket that 'wriggled up and shot/ darkness with a parasol of brilliants' and further the 'para-flares spot-welding heaven' is a wonderful panoramic image in one line.
Murry uses colour simply but effectively. How do you describe glowing embers? In Late Summer Fires he talks about red-black wounds.
How do you capture the baking heat that leads to drought in Australia? He talks of the light in the 'white of the drought'.
I think Murry appeals to my visual learning style. Maybe it's that he doesn't try to be cryptic in his message. I get it when I read it. I don't need to decipher it through ten readings. I don't have a literary background in my education (an A-level in Eccles doesn't really count for squat) and don't have peerless peers to debate denouement and subtlety. Have a look - Les Murry is one of the most accessible poets around today.
Read him here at: http://www.lesmurray.org/pm_pf.htm
