When we went down the hollow
under the stormcloud nations
the light was generalised there
from vague glass places in the trees
and the colours were moist and zinc,
submerged and weathered and lichen
with black aisles and white poplar blues.

from 'The Mowed Hollow'
   

Conscious and Verbal is Les Murray's first book since his celebrated verse novel Fredy Neptune, described by Peter Porter in the Independent as,
'a true verse novel, not just a tour de force but a sustained piece of storytelling in
poetry.' Conscious and Verbal is full of stories, too: political stories as in the harrowing 'At the Swamping of Categories'; love stories, epithalamia and celebrations; curious 'Sound Bites'; and the wonderfully fluid rhythmic surprise of poems such as 'Music to Me is Like Days'. The story behind the title poem has to do with the nearly fatal illness of the poet. When he was declared 'conscious and verbal' it was clear that he would survive, and the work he has produced since then he has described as 'posthumous', illuminated by various previously unseen and wonderfully shimmering lights. He has always had a vision of how things are; now he sees how they might be. Derek Walcott says,
'There is no poetry in the English language so rooted in its sacredness, so broad-leafed in its pleasures, and yet so intimate and
conversational.'