Taller When Prone (Carcanet) is the second collection of poems from Les Murray since the publication of his Collected Poems...As in the last book, The Biplane Houses both lines and poems themselves are frequently short, with a fragmentary flavour. Murray loves facts, detail, stuff about the world, and in that way he has always been a poet of witness. Throughout his oeuvre, particularly his essays, there are points on which I could launch a full and angry repudiation, and other places which reveal a compassionate profunity. If only he were a simple reactionary. It seems better for all cocnerned when he just describes things.