Subhuman Redneck Poems
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| Author | Les Murray | 
|---|---|
| Language | English | 
| Genre | Poetry collection | 
| Publisher | Duffy and Snellgrove | 
Publication date  | 1996 | 
| Publication place | Australia | 
| Media type | |
| Pages | 104 pp. | 
| Awards | 1997 winner Victorian Premier's Literary Awards — Prize for Poetry | 
| ISBN | 1875989080 | 
Subhuman Redneck Poems is a collection of poems by Australian writer Les Murray, published by Duffy and Snellgrove in 1996.[1]
The collection contains 66 poems which were published in a variety of original publications, with some being published here for the first time.[2]
Contents
- "The Family Farmers' Victory"
 - "A Brief History"
 - "Where Humans Can't Leave and Mustn't Complain"
 - "Green Rose Tan"
 - "The Say-But-the-Word Centurion Attempts a Summary"
 - "Dead Trees in the DamiC
 - "Rock Music"
 - "The Rollover"
 - "Late Summer Fires"
 - "Corniche"
 - "Suspended Vessels"
 - "The Water Column"
 - "The Beneficiaries"
 - "The Maenads"
 - "The Portrait Head"
 - "Phrygia, Birthplace of Embroidery"
 - "Like Wheeling Stacked Water"
 - "Wallis Lake Estuary"
 - "Twin Towns History"
 - "The Sand Dingoes"
 - "On Home Beaches"
 - "Leash Chain"
 - "From Bennett's Head"
 - "The Bohemian Occupation"
 - "The Fossil Imprint"
 - "On the Present Slaughter of Feral Animals"
 - "Memories of the Height-to-Weight Ratio"
 - "Water-Gardening in an Old Farm Dam"
 - "The Suspension of Knock"
 - "It Allows a Portrait in Line-Scan at Fifteen"
 - "Performance"
 - "War Song"
 - "Australian Love Poem"
 - "Inside Ayers Rock"
 - "Each Morning Once More Seamless"
 - "Contested Landscape at Forsayth"
 - "The Shield-Scales of Heraldry"
 - "The Year of the Kiln Portraits"
 - "A Stage of Gentrification"
 - "Earth Tremor at Night"
 - "Waking Up on Tour"
 - "Tympan Alley"
 - "A Lego of Driving to Sydney"
 - "Burning Want"
 - "For the Sydney Jewish Museum : And Peter Wagner"
 - "The Last Hellos"
 - "Opening in England"
 - "My Ancestress and the Secret Ballot : 1848 and 1851"
 - "Comete"
 - "Dry Water"
 - "Life Cycle of Ideas"
 - "Cotton Flannelette"
 - "The Trances"
 - "The Devil"
 - "The Nearly Departed"
 - "The Warm Rain"
 - "For Helen Darville"
 - "Demo"
 - "Deaf Language"
 - "Reverse Light"
 - "The Genetic Galaxy"
 - "Blowfly Grass"
 - "Dreambabwe"
 - "Below Bronte House"
 - "The Head-Spider"
 - "Under the Banana Mountains"
 
Critical reception
Writing in the Independent (UK) William Scammell noted: "If you like your politics in black and white, or Left and Right, Les Murray might be filed away, in his latest incarnation, as a reactionary mystic nationalist - an Australian Solzhenitsyn, perhaps - who babbles about God while sniping at the multicultural facts of modern life and smearing liberals with responsibility for half the horrors of the 20th century."[3]
Awards
- 1996 winner T. S. Eliot Prize[4]
 - 1997 winner Victorian Premier's Literary Awards — Prize for Poetry[5]
 
Notes
- Tony Stephens interviewed the author about this collection for The Sydney Morning Herald.[6]
 
See also
References
- ^ "Subhuman Redneck Poems by Les Murray". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 15 October 2024.
 - ^ "Austlit — Subhuman Redneck Poems by Les Murray". Austlit. Retrieved 15 October 2024.
 - ^ ""Going down but not under"". The Independent, 6 October 1996, p32. ProQuest 312534465. Retrieved 16 October 2024.
 - ^ ""1993-2015 The T. S. Eliot Prize"". .. Retrieved 16 October 2024.
 - ^ ""'Drowner' awarded top prize "". The Age 18 October 1997, p14. ProQuest 2521622477. Retrieved 16 October 2024.
 - ^ ""Return of the Redneck"". Sydney Morning Herald, 21 September 1996, p3s. ProQuest 2527356510. Retrieved 16 October 2024.
 
