Great Regulars: Now comes a book that offers a

powerfully candid view of Murray's struggles with depression--one that will speak even to readers unfamiliar with his work. "Killing the Black Dog: A Memoir of Depression" is an unusual book. One half is a prose memoir (first written as a 1997 lecture, with an afterword composed in 2009) about his long struggle with serious depression. The second half comprises what Murray calls the "Black Dog" poems (the phrase is Churchill's term for depression, and has a long history)--24 poems written over the course of his life that deal squarely either with his depression or with the subterranean anger that he believes led to it.

from Meghan O'Rourke: The New York Times: Les Murray and the Poetry of Depression

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