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Peter Porter
Peter Porter's poetry has long teased the imagination of some and spurred the delight of others. His witty, passionate, and energetic verse has made a home for itself in the minds of readers in Australia and elsewhere. This book touches on some of the wellsprings of Porter's imagination, and traces the direction of its flow. It looks both toward the salient features of poetry at any time, and towards Porter's distinctive possession of these. Steele's book assumes that while Porter's poetry finds its origins in distinctive personal experience, it is everywhere transmuted by the power of an extraordinarily original intelligence. Anyone reading Porter for the first time will find in this book cues and clues for its comprehension and enjoyment. The practiced reader of Porter, whether sympathetic or not, will find new challenges.
The Cost of Seriousness
First published in 1978 and now reissued as part of the Poetry Book Society's Back in Print series, The Cost of Seriousness is one of Peter Porter's most popular poetry collections. Written in the aftermath of the tragic death of his wife, it marks a period of change in his life. It indulges many voices and themes, often taking solace in music and art.
Better Than God
"Peter Porter is one of the pre-eminent Australian poets of his generation and a major figure in the landscape of British poetry. The publication of Better Than God will coincide with his 80th birthday. He has received the Queen's Gold Medal for poetry and innumerable other awards. A previous collection for Picador, Max Is Missing, won the Forward Prize for best collection. Porter's new collection refines the ideas of his last few books, returning to the themes of history, art and mortality. Many of the poems are reminiscent of Wallace Steven's final book The Rock in their magisterial late-life perspective. This is an important work from a highly respected poet."--Publisher's website.
Collected Poems: 1984-1999
The second volume of this new edition of Peter Porter's collected poems covers the period 1984-1998, and includes an entirely new collection, Both Ends Against the Middle, published here for the first time. Published to coincide with this cosmopolitan poet's 70th birthday on 16 February 1999.
Other Passports
None
The Rest on the Flight
Satirist, philosopher, elegist, aphorist, cultural historian - Peter Porter is perhaps too singular a talent to be described as 'representative' of the age: an Australian whose easy familiarity with the breadth of European culture puts most Europeans to shame, he has long held the reputation of one of our most intellectually promiscuous and culturally sophisticated writers. Porter uses the poem as a means through which a thought can be pursued; this selection from fifty years' work allows us the first opportunity to fully survey the quality and breadth of that thought, and the unfailing intensity of its light. In short, his Selected Poems is a one-volume education: Porter's subtle and profound sense of history permits him to read any event as a point in a dynamic space where the forces of time and culture converge. From these coordinates, he gives perspective, direction and bearing to our contemporary life, and allows us to read the pattern of our ideas, art and loves on the map of an ancient terrain. That he has done all this with such immense good humour and human compassion is one of the literary miracles of our time.
Afterburner
Afterburner is a thoroughly appropriate title for this fuel injected late work. nowhere has Porter so clearly declared his belief in the poem as an engine for serious thought, which here takes the form of everything from eleoquent disquisition to razor-sharp epigram. From his lengthening perspective and high vantage few are better placed that Porter to give these subtle meditations on life, art, and the social moves - and no one could manage them with such compassion and humour.
Max is Missing
Few poets now writing share Porter’s sense of the big picture, his ability to read the small event against the waxings and wanings of culture and empire. Whether these poems look at Europe through the strata of its Golden Ages, revisit the Australia of his childhood or turn their surreal wit to the quieter domestic landscape, together they amount to a sustained meditation on the spirit that bears comparison with the late poems of Wallace Stevens. Magisterial in its perspective and possessed of a rare intellectual sanity, Max is Missing is Porter’s most charged and direct work since The Cost of Seriousness.
The Automatic Oracle
Peter Porter's new collection demonstrates his maturity as a poet and his ability to work in a variety of forms. Speaking of the English language as the "oracle" with the poet acting as a "priest" carrying messages to the outside world, Porter concentrates on the themes of childhood, dreams, painting, history, as well as words and their responsibilities.
