LES MURRAY at Goldsmith's

Last night Sara Crowley and I had a great visit to Goldsmith’s College where the Australian poet Les Murray, (winner among other things of the T S Eliot Prize and the Queen’s medal for Poetry) was giving a reading.
The last time I went up to London with Sara I manage to miss meeting her train at Hayward’s Heath. This time I was in plenty of time and was munching my way through a bag of crisps (late lunch) on the platform when the train came in.
Great to see both her and Les Murray, whose reading was simply great.
And it’s a funny thing, we were wondering afterwards, what synchronicities were at play in her invitation to attend. Then in her invitation to me.
I think we decided that it was a message from on high (or below) about being yourself, and just writing your own stuff. Not trying to ‘fit in’ with any movement, or requirements set by other people. And about not being blinded by bullshit, of which there are many peddlers about.

Sara blogs HERE
Les Murray has information and many great poems HERE

And HERE he is on Wikipedia:

T'was also lovely and fortuitous to meet Chrissie Gittins, whose latest book launch last week I has to miss, sadly. We had a natter about the precarious state of independent publishing.

Her latest book is a collection of poetry from Salt Publishing: I'll Dress One Night as You. The collection contains a sequence of poems chosen for publication by Les Murray himself in the Australian magazine, Quadrant.