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Short Blacks
Killing the Black Dog
In 1988, shortly after moving from Sydney back to his birthplace in the rural New South Wales hamlet of Bunyah, Les Murray was struck with depression. In the months that followed, the "Black Dog" (as he calls it) ruled his life. He raged at his wife and children. He ducked a parking ticket on grounds of insanity, and begged a police officer to shoot him rather than arrest him. For days on end he lay in despair, a state in which, as he puts it precisely, "you feel beneath help."
Killing the Black Dog is Murray's recollection of those awful brief, pointed, wise, and full of beauty in the way of his poetry. The prose text―delicately balanced between personal and informative―gives a glimpse of the imprint that depression can leave on a life. The accompanying poems show their roots in his crisis―a crisis from which, he reports toward the close of this poignant book, he has fully recovered. "My thinking is no longer jammed and sooty with resentment," he recalls. "I no longer wear only stretch-knit clothes and drawstring pants. I no longer come down with bouts of weeping or reasonless exhaustion. And I no longer seek rejection in a belief that only bitterly conceded praise is reliable."
Killing the Black Dog is a crucial chapter in the life of an outstanding poet.
Killing the Black Dog is Murray's recollection of those awful brief, pointed, wise, and full of beauty in the way of his poetry. The prose text―delicately balanced between personal and informative―gives a glimpse of the imprint that depression can leave on a life. The accompanying poems show their roots in his crisis―a crisis from which, he reports toward the close of this poignant book, he has fully recovered. "My thinking is no longer jammed and sooty with resentment," he recalls. "I no longer wear only stretch-knit clothes and drawstring pants. I no longer come down with bouts of weeping or reasonless exhaustion. And I no longer seek rejection in a belief that only bitterly conceded praise is reliable."
Killing the Black Dog is a crucial chapter in the life of an outstanding poet.
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
13 people are currently reading
326 people want to read
About the author
Les Murray
90 books60 followersLeslie Allan Murray (born 1938) was the outstanding poet of his generation and one of his country's most influential literary critics. A nationalist and republican, he saw his writing as helping to define, in cultural and spiritual terms, what it means to be Australian.
Leslie Allan Murray was born in 1938 in Nabiac, a village on the north coast of New South Wales, Australia, and spent his childhood and youth on his father's dairy farm nearby. The area is sparsely populated, hilly, and forested, and the beauty of this rural landscape forms a backdrop to many of Murray's best poems, such as 'Spring Hail':
"Fresh-minted hills
smoked, and the heavens swirled and blew away.
The paddocks were endless again, and all around
leaves lay beneath their trees, and cakes of moss."
His parents were poor and their weatherboard house almost bare of comforts; Murray remarked that it was not until he went to the university that he first met the middle class. His identification was with the underprivileged, especially the rural poor, and it was this that gave him his strong sense of unity with Aborigines and with 'common folk'. The title he chose for his Selected Poems, The Vernacular Republic, indicates both this sense of unity and his Wordsworthian belief that through the use of 'language really spoken by men' poets can speak to and for the people.
Many of the Scottish settlers on the New South Wales coast had been forced out of Scotland by the Highland clearances of the l9th century, and they in turn were among those who dispossessed the Aboriginal Kattang tribe around the Manning valley; in later years Murray's own father was forced off the land by family chicanery. The theme of usurpation, whether of land or of culture, as well as the influence of Murray's Celtic background, often make themselves felt in his work, as one sees in poems such as 'A Walk with O'Connor,' in which the two Australian Celts try in vain to understand Gaelic on a tombstone, the grave becoming symbolic of the death of Celtic culture:
"...reading the Gaelic, constrained and shamefaced, we tried to guess what it meant
then, drifting away, translated Italian off opulent tombstones nearby in our discontent."
In 1957 Murray went to the University of Sydney to study modern languages. While there he worked on the editorial boards of student publications. At Sydney he was converted from the Free Kirk Presbyterianism of his parents to Roman Catholicism, and the influence of passionately held Christian convictions can be seen everywhere in his verse, though seldom overtly; instead it shows itself, in poems such as 'Blood' or 'The Broad Bean Sermon,' in a strong sense of the power of ritual in everyday life and of the sacramental quality of existence. 'AImost everything they say is ritual,' he remarked of rural Australians in one of his best-known poems, 'The Mitchells.'
He left Sydney University in 1960 without a degree, and in 1963, on the strength of his studies in modern languages, became a translator of foreign scholarly material at the Australian National University in Canberra. His first volume of poems, The llex Tree (written with Geoffrey Lehmann), won the Grace Leven Prize for poetry on its publication in 1965, and in the same year Murray made his first trip out of Australia, to attend the British Commonwealth Arts Festival Poetry Conference in Cardiff. His appetite whetted by this visit, he gave up his translator's post in 1967 and spent over a year traveling in Britain and Europe. Travel had the effect of confirming him in his Australian nationalism; he was a republican who believed that Australia should throw off the shackles of political and cultural dependence, and he saw his work as helping to achieve that end.
On his return to Australia he resumed his studies, graduating from Sydney University in 1969. After that he earned his living as a full-time poet and writer. He was one of Australia's most influential literary critics.
Leslie Allan Murray was born in 1938 in Nabiac, a village on the north coast of New South Wales, Australia, and spent his childhood and youth on his father's dairy farm nearby. The area is sparsely populated, hilly, and forested, and the beauty of this rural landscape forms a backdrop to many of Murray's best poems, such as 'Spring Hail':
"Fresh-minted hills
smoked, and the heavens swirled and blew away.
The paddocks were endless again, and all around
leaves lay beneath their trees, and cakes of moss."
His parents were poor and their weatherboard house almost bare of comforts; Murray remarked that it was not until he went to the university that he first met the middle class. His identification was with the underprivileged, especially the rural poor, and it was this that gave him his strong sense of unity with Aborigines and with 'common folk'. The title he chose for his Selected Poems, The Vernacular Republic, indicates both this sense of unity and his Wordsworthian belief that through the use of 'language really spoken by men' poets can speak to and for the people.
Many of the Scottish settlers on the New South Wales coast had been forced out of Scotland by the Highland clearances of the l9th century, and they in turn were among those who dispossessed the Aboriginal Kattang tribe around the Manning valley; in later years Murray's own father was forced off the land by family chicanery. The theme of usurpation, whether of land or of culture, as well as the influence of Murray's Celtic background, often make themselves felt in his work, as one sees in poems such as 'A Walk with O'Connor,' in which the two Australian Celts try in vain to understand Gaelic on a tombstone, the grave becoming symbolic of the death of Celtic culture:
"...reading the Gaelic, constrained and shamefaced, we tried to guess what it meant
then, drifting away, translated Italian off opulent tombstones nearby in our discontent."
In 1957 Murray went to the University of Sydney to study modern languages. While there he worked on the editorial boards of student publications. At Sydney he was converted from the Free Kirk Presbyterianism of his parents to Roman Catholicism, and the influence of passionately held Christian convictions can be seen everywhere in his verse, though seldom overtly; instead it shows itself, in poems such as 'Blood' or 'The Broad Bean Sermon,' in a strong sense of the power of ritual in everyday life and of the sacramental quality of existence. 'AImost everything they say is ritual,' he remarked of rural Australians in one of his best-known poems, 'The Mitchells.'
He left Sydney University in 1960 without a degree, and in 1963, on the strength of his studies in modern languages, became a translator of foreign scholarly material at the Australian National University in Canberra. His first volume of poems, The llex Tree (written with Geoffrey Lehmann), won the Grace Leven Prize for poetry on its publication in 1965, and in the same year Murray made his first trip out of Australia, to attend the British Commonwealth Arts Festival Poetry Conference in Cardiff. His appetite whetted by this visit, he gave up his translator's post in 1967 and spent over a year traveling in Britain and Europe. Travel had the effect of confirming him in his Australian nationalism; he was a republican who believed that Australia should throw off the shackles of political and cultural dependence, and he saw his work as helping to achieve that end.
On his return to Australia he resumed his studies, graduating from Sydney University in 1969. After that he earned his living as a full-time poet and writer. He was one of Australia's most influential literary critics.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
February 13, 2012
A few things you should be aware of in this book: The "black dog" Murray refers to in the title is depression. Winston Churchill referred to depression as his "black dog", and Murrary appropriates it in his book. This book is half depression memoir and half poetry relating to Murray's depression.
Writing:
Beautiful. The whole thing, including the prose memoir in the first half of the book, is very lyrical, which is natural given that Murray is a poet. I really enjoyed taking a look at depression through the lens of poetry. It's something that I haven't had the experience of doing before and I think Murray is an excellent introduction. Because the first half is a memoir, it eased the transition into straight up poetry, which I always find daunting.
Entertainment Value:
Obviously, the book is about depression, so it's not a happy, rosy, frothy story by any means. It's really not even a story - it's reminiscences on a very serious mental illness. However, Murray's story is also hopeful and insightful for those who suffer from depression or those who want to understand depression. At the end, Murray makes peace with his episodes of depression and feels he has killed the black dog - he finds that for now he is cured. The poetry is melancholic, but again, hopeful. I found myself having to read the poems over and over to fully understand them, but I think that is the nature of poetry.
Overall:
This is a great literary look at depression. It's also short and, I think, accessible to readers who are willing to put in some effort. Here's one more interesting tidbit: my older brother is a poetry professor and editor in chief of 32 Poems literary magazine. He's my go to source for all things poetry-related, so I texted him when I started this to ask if he likes Les Murray. Turns out, he's currently corresponding with Murray. It was another case of literary kismet and I got to pass on word to Murray through David that his poetry was meaningful to me.
Writing:
Beautiful. The whole thing, including the prose memoir in the first half of the book, is very lyrical, which is natural given that Murray is a poet. I really enjoyed taking a look at depression through the lens of poetry. It's something that I haven't had the experience of doing before and I think Murray is an excellent introduction. Because the first half is a memoir, it eased the transition into straight up poetry, which I always find daunting.
Entertainment Value:
Obviously, the book is about depression, so it's not a happy, rosy, frothy story by any means. It's really not even a story - it's reminiscences on a very serious mental illness. However, Murray's story is also hopeful and insightful for those who suffer from depression or those who want to understand depression. At the end, Murray makes peace with his episodes of depression and feels he has killed the black dog - he finds that for now he is cured. The poetry is melancholic, but again, hopeful. I found myself having to read the poems over and over to fully understand them, but I think that is the nature of poetry.
Overall:
This is a great literary look at depression. It's also short and, I think, accessible to readers who are willing to put in some effort. Here's one more interesting tidbit: my older brother is a poetry professor and editor in chief of 32 Poems literary magazine. He's my go to source for all things poetry-related, so I texted him when I started this to ask if he likes Les Murray. Turns out, he's currently corresponding with Murray. It was another case of literary kismet and I got to pass on word to Murray through David that his poetry was meaningful to me.
February 1, 2016
Utterly readable, fascinating, heart warming, this is such good writing. You just don't get to read GOOD writing that often. Especially about something that lifts the lid, or let's you look behind the closed door of the creators mind.
It doesn't hurt that this book is short! 80 pages short. It also doesn't hurt that I too am an Australian with a mingling relationship with the black dog, and a longing for a creative career, where Les Murray can look back on a brilliant one.
Poetry, prose, are his weapons against this dog, and brutal honesty with himself. In an atmosphere where the Australian public has not generally given him a very pleasant time.
If there's hope for him though, you have a sense that there's hope for the rest of us.
It doesn't hurt that this book is short! 80 pages short. It also doesn't hurt that I too am an Australian with a mingling relationship with the black dog, and a longing for a creative career, where Les Murray can look back on a brilliant one.
Poetry, prose, are his weapons against this dog, and brutal honesty with himself. In an atmosphere where the Australian public has not generally given him a very pleasant time.
If there's hope for him though, you have a sense that there's hope for the rest of us.
September 20, 2019
At one point as I'm reading this I think Les Murray is just another bloke - as we like to call the run of the mill type - suffering like we all do in this maelstrom we call the human condition. So I extend the hand of friendship and say, OK, I'll hear your story. And it's fine. He wants to talk about the deep effect of depression. I share his pain at this point. And yet, he just can't help himself, he says he's not partisan, but 3/4 of the way in he just has to politicise his book and talk about the lefties and feminists he hates. Then, perhaps I realised, you can't bridge certain divides when one party is always a a switched-on ideologue ready to bite. Yes, he bit my hand.
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August 2, 2011LES MURRAY IS BOTH Australia’s strongest neo-bush poet and a poetic iconoclast, with his rough-mannered political conservatism, his sprawling rural idiom, and his belief in a Christian Creator (several of his books bear the dedication “To the glory of God”) whom he unabashedly and deliriously pits against his own powers of poetic creation. “I adore the Creator because I made myself,” Murray writes in “Corniche,” one of the ‘Black Dog Poems’ in which he treats the clinical depressions of his “twenty horror years.” Read more...
August 3, 2011
It is always fun to hear a poet talk about his or her poems; it makes the experience of reading the poems all the richer. I enjoyed this book for its combination of essay/poem. Also, the subject of depression and how it intertwines with art is well-treated in this book: it's personal, but not self-indulgently so. The author establishes and maintains if not an objective view point, a gently self-critical/quizzical one. I recommend it. Oh, and another thing I liked was the interesting vernacular (the poet was born in New South Wales, Australia).
August 9, 2010
Look, for anyone with a lean towards the melancholic the essay(s) at the beginning of this little book (particularly of the updated edition) are particularly insightful. The poems afterwards aren't the worst in the world either, and also lend insight into the mind of a great, yet controversial and emotionally complex, artist.
June 15, 2011
Brilliant. Once he did get defensive about depression when mentioning a friend who committed suicide. It is as if he'd heard criticism before about this instance. However, it was honest. The poems were an excellent touch
December 25, 2015
3.5 stars. No doubt, Les Murray is one of Australia's finest wordsmiths but I was left greedily wanting more...
I don't think this works in short form so I'm hoping it will be revised - again - into a meatier memoir.
I don't think this works in short form so I'm hoping it will be revised - again - into a meatier memoir.
worth-considering
March 10, 2011Recommended in the NYT: here. This Australian poet is new to me.
June 3, 2011
A prose memoir followed by a short anthology of the poems referred to in the text. Often bitter, but always potent. The place to start for Murray if you don't want to essay Fredy Neptune.
July 8, 2011
I'm working on a reflection for a church service on living with mental illness. Murray's concise and poetic language is helping a lot.
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December 3, 2024No stars :(
May 1, 2014
Poems about depression, or anything deeply traumatic or personal, are often more necessary for the writer to write than for the reader to read. At its worst, personal poetry is mediocre and does not need to be published.
Occasionally, though, a poet is skilled or aware enough to describe the mundane horror of depression in a way that makes it interesting. Les Murray's black dog is in turns profound ("the weeping man, like the earth, requires nothing"), ominous ("this one might have made dark news"), and absurd ("depression... / when, returned from a pee, you stew and welter in your death"). He does not write from feeling alone, but from a wry remembrance of it; I felt as if we were both looking at Murray-the-depressed with the same curiosity.
My favorite poems were "Corniche" (which plays off of Phillip Larkin's "Aubade"), "Burning Want," and the famous "An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow." Others, such as "Performance" and the one-stanzas, fell flat for me only because the other poems were so substantive and well thought-out.
Occasionally, though, a poet is skilled or aware enough to describe the mundane horror of depression in a way that makes it interesting. Les Murray's black dog is in turns profound ("the weeping man, like the earth, requires nothing"), ominous ("this one might have made dark news"), and absurd ("depression... / when, returned from a pee, you stew and welter in your death"). He does not write from feeling alone, but from a wry remembrance of it; I felt as if we were both looking at Murray-the-depressed with the same curiosity.
My favorite poems were "Corniche" (which plays off of Phillip Larkin's "Aubade"), "Burning Want," and the famous "An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow." Others, such as "Performance" and the one-stanzas, fell flat for me only because the other poems were so substantive and well thought-out.
October 4, 2016
The original essay is quite good, however the afterward written in 2009 is a necessary addition.
Les' reflection on what he could have achieved if he'd owned a 'single, healthy mind working on his side' is relatable and express what depression can truly take out of a person.
His acknowledgment that you can never really kill the black dog is also necessary and makes up for the naivety in his initial essay.
As a women and a feminist I found his claims that the male victims of women who deliberately destruct a persons sexual moral outnumber all other victim groups combined quite ridiculous. However in his afterward he acknowledges that since writing the initial essay he overcame much of his issues with women and became less self-absorbed, so I would assume that this claim may no longer stand.
All in all an interesting insight into one of Australians great poets.
Les' reflection on what he could have achieved if he'd owned a 'single, healthy mind working on his side' is relatable and express what depression can truly take out of a person.
His acknowledgment that you can never really kill the black dog is also necessary and makes up for the naivety in his initial essay.
As a women and a feminist I found his claims that the male victims of women who deliberately destruct a persons sexual moral outnumber all other victim groups combined quite ridiculous. However in his afterward he acknowledges that since writing the initial essay he overcame much of his issues with women and became less self-absorbed, so I would assume that this claim may no longer stand.
All in all an interesting insight into one of Australians great poets.
April 30, 2013
An excellent essay on depression and the cost it exacts on art and the individual, followed by a small anthology of poems which capture the feeling of depression in an artistic fashion. Les Murray gives a frank, open and honest account of his long struggle with "The Black Dog" throughout his life and manages to inspire a feeling of hope and survival.
April 17, 2020
I read Les Murray's obituary in The Economist in 2019. Like Michel Houellebecq, he made his mark as a disruptive iconoclast who railed against 1960's counterculture and its legacy. I appreciated Murray's Australian sensibility and descriptions of childhood and personal struggles, especially with the Black Dog of depression.
January 26, 2016
A moving poetic exploration of mental health issues, Les Murray is wrenchingly honest in this collection. What I liked best is that it resists the easy 'and then everything got better' narrative, showing the true complexity of living with vulnerable mental health.
February 6, 2013
It hit a little too close to home at times.
Some of the poetry, intense and lyrical. Sometimes, just intense and hard to comprehend. Perhaps a slight difference in language was at the root.
Some of the poetry, intense and lyrical. Sometimes, just intense and hard to comprehend. Perhaps a slight difference in language was at the root.
October 1, 2015
Having a short memoir at the beginning of his poetry helped me understand his pieces better I think .
Wish more Poets did that :)
Wish more Poets did that :)
October 7, 2015
One I've had for a while and needed a filler between books.
January 24, 2016
life story and poetry of famous poet from NSW suffering from depression
September 17, 2017
essay was good; poems not so much.
March 10, 2018
Intensely intimate, elegantly written and entirely readable. Murray is a masterful writer.
April 18, 2019
A good, brief account of Murray's depression; accompanied by some thoughtful, good poetry. Kinda made me want to read his verse novel Freddy Neptune.
January 30, 2021
Läs min recension på bloggen: https://www.fiktiviteter.se/2021/01/3...
April 17, 2022
I'm a fan of Les Murray and loved this essay.
Lots of grumpy wisdom and crotchety goodness.
I especially like the fact that his Black Dog was killed or perhaps wounded by a accident of nature; an illness and near-death experience.
The message is that depression of this sort is not something that can be beaten with life-style changes or drugs or therapy, although these things can certainly make it more bearable.
Has made me want to take a warm bath in his poetry some time soon!
Lots of grumpy wisdom and crotchety goodness.
I especially like the fact that his Black Dog was killed or perhaps wounded by a accident of nature; an illness and near-death experience.
The message is that depression of this sort is not something that can be beaten with life-style changes or drugs or therapy, although these things can certainly make it more bearable.
Has made me want to take a warm bath in his poetry some time soon!
January 1, 2023
Crash course on how a conservative experiences depression.
January 5, 2025
A lot of things in this well written piece, is something I think mostly people with anxiety and depression can understand. It hit me hard.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews