From 1973-79, Murray worked as an editor of the influential Poetry Australia. He also played a part in redirecting Australian tastes in poetry with such anthologies as the New Oxford Book of Australian Verse (1986). Murray lives on a farm not far from his childhood home and much of his work reflects the landscapes, people and values of rural Australia. The characters in his poems are typically farmers, impoverished pioneers, workers in sheep stations and sugar mills. Murray's poetry is strongly affected by his Catholic faith, but he also has a deep interest in Aboriginal culture, which he calls the "senior culture".

His poem The Buladelah-Taree Holiday Song Cycle, in the collection Ethnic Radio (1977), uses traditional Aboriginal verse forms to describe modern white Australians on holiday. The Boys Who Stole the Funeral (1979) describes the theft of a body from a Sydney mortician's parlour for burial in the dead man's native place. Subhuman Redneck Poems (1996) celebrates "redneckery" and was received with acclaim, winning the prestigious T S Eliot Prize. Fredy Neptune (1999) is a mythic verse narrative describing the adventures of a German-Australian sailor during World War I.