To readers of Quadrant the emergence of Les Murray’s last poems just three years on from his death will have a special poignance. He was the magazine’s literary and poetry editor for more than thirty years and did his best to maintain the quality and variety of its poetry, despite many of Australia’s best poets being disinclined to see their work appear beside essays whose viewpoints they were likely to disagree with. Murray himself was always more idiosyncratic politically than people realise. He was a republican who accepted the Queen’s Medal for Poetry. His poetry arose directly from the rural…