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Peter Porter
Peter Porter was born in Brisbane in 1929 and died in London in 2010; he had lived there since 1951. He published countless poetry collections, anthologies, reviews, and essays for almost half a century. He was a frequent contributor to ABR. His collections include The Cost of Seriousness (1978), Fast Forward (1984), and Collected Poems (1983 and 1999). His many awards included the 1988 Whitbread Poetry Award, the 1990 ALS Gold Medal, the 2002 Forward Poetry Prize, and the 2002 Queen’s Medal for Poetry. He wrote thousands of reviews, essays, lectures, and introductions. His work appeared in Australian Book Review from 1985 to 2010. His fellow poet–critic Peter Steele, who wrote a monograph on Porter, published this tribute in ABR following Peter Porter’s death on 23 April 2010. ABR’s poetry prize was renamed after him to honour his remarkable poetry and generosity to countless Australian poets.
Satire is more than just biting animosity or moral denunciation, though in those shapes it has made its greatest contribution to world literature – from Aristophanes and Juvenal to the first Samuel Butler and Swift. The convention only works in relatively permissive societies. During the worst excesses of censorship in the Cold War, the authorities were seldom worried by satires cleverly conceal ... (read more)
There is no such thing as maturity.
Wagner writes stiff Weberian tunes,
stiffer far than Weber’s, but the best
employ those signal little turns,
gruppetti, helping raise his melodies
to some redemptive ecstasy,
genuflecting as they go.
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Some years ago I wrote a poem called A Table of Coincidences’, which contained the lines: ‘the day Christopher Columbus discovered America / Was the day Piero della Francesca died.’ This is a verifiable fact, unless changes in the Western calendar have altered things. Clearly, I was being sententious and reactionary: the ancient good of the world and its new doubtfulness seemed to start on t ... (read more)
Some years ago I wrote a poem called A Table of Coincidences’, which contained the lines: ‘the day Christopher Columbus discovered America / Was the day Piero della Francesca died.’ This is a verifiable fact, unless changes in the Western calendar have altered things. Clearly, I was being sententious and reactionary: the ancient good of the world and its new doubtfulness seemed to start on t ... (read more)
‘Addio, valle di pianti’ –
These the composer’s plainchant words
No librettist dare rewrite
At using up imprisoned air
To sing like miners’ warning birds
Inside the sunless atmosphere
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This must be a page from The ManualFor the Instructing of Humanity,Showing the improvement of the Social OrderBy the avoidance of personal identificationWith Suffering, a turning-away to private Sanity.
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What works you did will be yourself when youHave left the present, just as everythingThe past passed to the present must becomeA terrible unstoppable one blendOf being there (the world) and not to be(The Self). Grow old along with me, the bestIs bet to be – the worst (of course) lack(s) allConviction, as the poet mistranscribed,Storming a grave to satisfy his pride.They love me, all my words, de ... (read more)
Our landlord’s man has let us off this time, We’re not expelled.Victorians liked their mortar made with lime, Our walls have held.
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