Murrary ‘Muz’ Hartin has collated the best of his heart-warming and hilarious yarns and ripper poems for everyone to enjoy in Fair Crack of the Whip, a collection of totally Aussie, character-filled stories told with a mega-watt lightning bolt of energy.
His poems have long been a source of entertainment for people young and old and from all walks of life. His hilarious yarn Turbulence, about his late, great mate Billy Hayes is arguably the most popular Aussie poem in the post-Paterson era while the haunting Rain From Nowhere, an empathic insight into the life of a struggling farmer, was described in TIME Magazine as ‘A celebration of resilience and hope, it is as moving a piece of Australian verse as has been published in decades’.
Murray Hartin’s rhyming style of verse is directly infl uenced by the poems of Banjo Paterson and his Moree Primary School teacher Paul Lawler. Plus a stack of crazy mates and a heap of wonderful characters who provide the inspiration for his verse.
Muz - he’ll make you laugh, he’ll make you cry and he’ll give you a great big taste of Australia.
‘Murray Hartin stands in the great tradition of Henry Lawson, Banjo Paterson and every bastard who’s ever leaned up against a bar and told a yarn or recited some Australian poetry. He’s a cross between an Australian original, a national treasure and a colourful swaggie who lost his way and fi nished up in 2005. I can’t recommend him highly enough.’ Peter FitzSimons
‘Murray Hartin’s great poem, Rain From Nowhere, while having a happy ending, eloquently and vividly speaks of far less fortunate outcomes. It is as human a story as it is an Australian one. Schools all across rugged and beautiful Australia should use Rain From Nowhere as a teaching tool. An excellent and brave piece of work.’ Henry Rollins US singer, songwriter, musician, actor, presenter, comedian and activist
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Murray ‘Muz’ Hartin grew up in the Northern NSW town of Moree and started his career in journalism at The Northern Daily Leader. The job came via a win in the inaugural Bush Poetry competition as part of the 1987 Tamworth Country Music Festival. Muz helped form The Naked Poets and the crew played to packed houses at the Tamworth Festival for 13 years. He moved to Manly in 1996 to try the poetry caper full-time and has somehow stayed afl oat for 23 years with the penning of his poem Turbulence in 1998 playing a huge role in his survival in the crazy world of entertainment. Muz has lived in Sydney, Tamworth, Newcastle and Melbourne but is now back home in Moree on his late Dad’s 25-acre block, four miles from town. He travels Australia performing at conferences, sporting lunches, charity functions, drought relief events, country festivals as we as conducting poetry workshops for schools. He plays bad golf, gets a big kick out of cooking for friends and making a huge mess, loves watching most sports, loves his music, can’t sing to save himself but he reckons nothing beats catching up with mates. He’s also one of the best poets in Australia.
