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Clip description
Les Murray speaks of his first trip to Newcastle with his mother in 1942 and occasionally thereafter. He returned to find the poem that he knew was there. Over a montage of images of family photos and Newcastle locations, Murray reads the poem that finally emerged.
Curator’s notes
Inventively interweaving autobiography, poetry and found and staged images, this clip is representative of the film which is an entirely personal reflection by Murray on his life and work. Murray’s poem 'The Smell of Coal Smoke’, heard here in its entirety, was published in the collection The People’s Otherworld (1983).
