The TLS first published Les Murray thirty-three years ago, and he has made regular appearances in our pages ever since. Arguably the most prominent Australian poet since the Second World War, and enjoying an international reputation, Murray has built up a substantial body of work exploring Australian life and culture from a persistently non-conformist slant, loathing fashion and coercion and celebrating instead "the quality of sprawl": individualistic, generous, unsnobbish, idiosyncratic.

"It Allows a Portrait in Line Scan at 15" was published in the TLS twenty-five years ago; it has been gently revised since then, with some lines being altered, others replaced, and two others relocated. From the intriguing title, with its frisson of the alien, and on through its steady and familiarizing revelations, it is a poem about learning. The reader gradually learns that the poem is about Murray's autistic son; the poet is describing his gradual comprehension of his son's difficulties and qualities; and, finally, we have the son's own erratic acquisition of knowledge, right up to the heart-breaking self-awareness of the final line. In style, the poem's use of stand-alone, factual observations, with no enjambements and no logical progressions between lines, mimics some of the condition it describes; but also draws an uneasy distinction between "It" – the condition, implacable and alien – and "him", the frightened and struggling boy, negotiating as best he can between his own limits and those of his family. Despite the dispassionate veneer – appropriate to his son's more machine-like moments – Murray delivers a powerful poem of humour, sadness, love and, surely, admiration.

It Allows a Portrait in Line Scan at Fifteen

He retains a slight "Martian" accent, from the years of single phrases.
He no longer hugs to disarm. It is gradually allowing him affection.
It does not allow proportion. Distress is absolute, shrieking, and runs him at frantic speed through crashing doors.
He likes cyborgs. Their taciturn power, with his intonation.
It still runs him around the house, alone in the dark, cooing and laughing.
He can read about soils, populations and New Zealand. On neutral topics he's illiterate.
Arnie Schwarzenegger is an actor. He isn't a cyborg really, is he, Dad?
He lives on forty acres, with animals and trees, and used to draw it continually.
He knows the map of Earth's fertile soils, and can draw it freehand.
He can only lie in a panicked shout SorrySorryIdidn'tdoit! warding off conflict with others and himself.
When he ran away constantly it was to the greengrocers to worship stacked fruit.
His favourite country was the Ukraine: it is nearly all deep fertile soil.
When asked to smile, he photographs a rictus-smile on his face.
It long forbade all naturalistic films. They were Adult movies.
If they (that is, he) are bad the police will put them in hospital.
He sometimes drew the farm amid Chinese or Balinese rice terraces.
When a runaway, he made uproar in the police station, playing at three times adult speed.
Only animated films were proper. Who Framed Roger Rabbit then authorised the rest.
Phrases spoken to him he would take as teaching, and repeat.
When he worshipped fruit, he screamed as if poisoned when it was fed to him.
A one-word first conversation: Blane. – Yes! Plane, that's right, baby! – Blane.
He has forgotten nothing, and remembers the precise quality of experiences.
It requires rulings: Is stealing very playing up, as bad as murder?
He counts at a glance, not looking. And he has never been lost.
When he ate only nuts and dried fruit, words were for dire emergencies.
He'd begun to talk, then returned to babble. It withdrew speech for years.
He remembers all the breeds of fowls, and all the counties of Ireland.
Is that very autistic, to play video games in the day?
He is anger's mirror, and magnifies any near him, raging it down.
It still won't allow him fresh fruit, or orange juice with bits in.
He swam in the midwinter dam at night. It had no rules about cold.
He was terrified of thunder and finally cried as if in explanation It – angry!
He grilled an egg he'd broken into bread. Exchanges of soil-knowledge are called landtalking.
He lives in objectivity. I was sure Bell's palsy would leave my face only when he said it had begun to.
Don't say word! when he was eight forbade the word "autistic" in his presence.
Bantering questions about girlfriends cause a terrified look and blocked ears.
He sometimes centred the farm in a furrowed American Midwest.
Eye contact, Mum! means he truly wants attention. It dislikes I contact.
He is equitable and kind, and only ever a little jealous. It was a relief when that little arrived.
He surfs, bowls, walks for miles. For many years he hasn't trailed his left arm while running.
I gotta get smart! Looking terrified into the years. I gotta get smart!

LES MURRAY (1994)

To read last week's Poem of the Week, "The Regimental Trumpeter Sounding in the Desert" by Keith Douglas, click here.

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