The New Oxford Book of Australian Verse is a major anthology of Australian poetry edited by the poet Les Murray. It was first published in 1986 and since has been expanded twice. The anthology gives a broad view of Australian poetry. It ranges in time from Indigenous Australian oral poetry composed before colonisation up to the late twentieth century. Except for dates it is without the contextualising apparatus of biographies and annotations: "The absence of notes and other prose apparatus is intended to focus attention solely on the poetry, and to leave room for more of." Another uncommon feature is the inclusion of Indigenous oral poems, which are attributed in the book to the language group of their sources.
