"A word of warning to begin with: Les Murray was big, bald and fat. I would not normally say any of these things, except that others do, we all do, coyly or haplessly or strickenly. It’s a factor that, unspoken and unspeakable, warps the language of praise in ways it sometimes seems beyond the wit of language itself to avoid – “a poet of international stature” (Peter Porter), “the gigantic talent of Les Murray” (Jeff Nuttall), “one of the greatest poets … in the English-speaking world … what he gives is enormous and quite beyond price” (Thomas Keneally), “there is no poetry in the English language now … so broad-leaved in its pleasures” (Derek Walcott), “Big Les!” (Michael Hofmann). Murray himself had no problem putting a sitting circus elephant on the cover of one of his earlier Collecteds (in 1998), or writing poems on the subject". Michael Hofmann TLS (paywall, worth the subscription)

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