![les murray](https://quadrant.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/les-murray-2.png)
Vale Les Murray, 1938-2019
Les Murray (left), Quadrant’s Literary Editor from March 1990 until this year’s January issue, passed away yesterday. Back then, we asked some of our writers if they would like to contribute their thoughts on Les’s tenure. Such is the esteem in which he was held that we were overwhelmed with responses. We printed eight of them in the January-February issue. Here they all are once again –the tributes of those who knew and loved him best.
We have lost a great poet, a great Australian and a great friend.
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Joe Dolce
I can think of no poet in the world with Les Murray’s range of sensibilities. He values language-based work (“Muse-wrestling”), ballads, religious writing, classical poetic structures and free verse. He is a language wizard. He cherishes the sound of poems, reading submissions out loud. He is fond of humour, an affinity he shares with Billy Collins.
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