About Peter Porter

Peter Porter’s (1929-2010) urbane poetry was first published in 1961, since when he published sixteen collections and much journalism, collaborated with visual arts, and was Writer-in-Residence at several universities, including Hull, Reading, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Melbourne, and Sydney. He was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, won the Duff Cooper and the Whitbread prizes, and was the subject of a special issue of Poetry Review.

Porter’s work is rooted in a recognisably modern civilisation, but is aware of what that civilisation covers up – his poem ‘The Sadness of the Creatures’ opens with “We live in a third-floor flat / among gentle predators”. This grounding allows his poetry to range among subjects, from a stoic elegy to his dead wife (‘Non Piangere, Liu’), to a sardonic take on life’s trivia in ‘Civilization and its Disney Contents’, and keeps his intelligence accessible.

His masterly control of tone allows him to transform interest in a subject into celebration of it – the Australian town ‘Woop Woop’, for instance, is neither mocked nor defended, but presented with a confidence that its essence will come through. That mastery is also able to present the image on ‘A Chagall Postcard’ in strong, vibrant imagery – “the blazing cock, the bride aloof” – then turn it smartly on itself to see the darkness beneath those images, finding a shroud in the bride’s train. That this is achieved in tight, closely-rhymed stanzas adds rhetorical weight to this turn.

His reading style is clear and measured, letting his images and effects, including his elegant use of rhyme and set forms, speak for themselves. Although his voice shows the effects of living in London since 1951, it has not lost an Australian tone; as a result, listeners are given a sense of ‘somewhere else’ that lends the poems, completely appropriately, the weight of external observations without becoming coldly clinical. He quotes Auden’s “Be subtle, various, ornamental, clever” approvingly; these qualities are all to be heard in Porter’s poetry on this CD.

Peter Porter’s Favourite Poetry Sayings:

“Be subtle, various, ornamental, clever, / And do not listen to those critics ever / Whose crude provincial gullets crave in books / Plain cooking made still plainer by plain cooks, / As though the Muse preferred her half-wit sons; / Good poets have a weakness for bad puns.” – W.H. Auden (From ‘The Truest Poetry is the Most Feigning’)

“An old art spreading rumours about / Paradise, it begs outside the gates / Of the gods: the active gods come out.” – Peter Porter (from ‘Poetry’)

Peter's recording was made on 9 July 2002 at The Audio Workshop, London and was produced by Richard Carrington.

Peter Porter in the Poetry Store

The free tracks you can enjoy in the Poetry Archive are a selection of a poet’s work. Our catalogue store includes many more recordings which you can download to your device.

Featured in the Archive

Books by Peter Porter

Awards

1983

Duff Cooper Memorial Prize for his first Collected Poems

1988

Whitbread Poetry Award for Automatic Oracle

1990

Australian Literature Society Gold Medal for Possible Worlds

1997

Age Book of the Year Poetry Prize Co-winner for Dragons in their Pleasant Palaces

1998

The First King's Lynn Award for Merit in Poetry

2000

Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal at the Mildura Writer's Festival

2002

Forward Poetry Prize for Max Is Missing

2002

Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry

2004

Medal of the Order of Australia

2004

Honorary Fellow of the English Association, UK

2007

Royal Society of Literature Companion of Literature

2009

Honorary Doctorate, Nottingham Trent University

2009

Age Book of the Year Poetry Prize for Better Than God

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