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Peter Porter

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.

La Trobe University Essay | The Survival of Poetry by Peter Porter

October 2002, no. 245 01 October 2002
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)

La Trobe University Essay | The Survival of Poetry

October 2002, no. 245 01 October 2002
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)

'Opus 77' a poem by Peter Porter

May 2006, no. 281 01 May 2006
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)

Peter Porter reviews 'The Amorous Cannibal' by Chris Wallace-Crabbe

May 1986, no. 80 01 May 1986
As artists get older, they are supposed to mature, and commentators begin to look for the demarcations of their three periods, a nice bequest from Beethoven. One vitiating side effect of this is to misplace freshness in their art. Judging the vital middle period works, and bowing before the sublimity of the late, the critic bestows a nostalgic glance over his shoulder to the early output – ah, w ... (read more)
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