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’)