Peter Porter (poet) - Work

Work

His poems first appeared in the Summer 1958 and October 1959 issues of Delta. The publication of his poem Metamorphosis in the Times Literary Supplement in January 1960 brought his work to a wider audience. His first collection Once Bitten Twice Bitten was published by Scorpion Press in 1961. Influences on his work include: W. H. Auden, John Ashbery, and Wallace Stevens.. He went through distinct poetic stages, from the epigrams and satires of his early works Once Bitten Twice Bitten, to the elegiac mode of his later ones; The Cost of Seriousness and English Subtitles. In a recorded conversation with his friend Clive James he stated that the "glory of present-day English writing in America, in Australia and in Britain, is what is left over of the old regular metrical pattern and how that can be adapted to the new sense that the main element, the main fixture of poetry is no longer the foot (you know, the iambus or the trochee) but the cadence. It seems that what is very important is to get the best of the old authority, the best of the old discipline along with the best of the new freedom of expression."

In 1983 Porter was a judge in the Man Booker Prize.

Read more about this topic:  Peter Porter (poet)

Famous quotes containing the word work:

    “Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The tricks that work on others count for nothing in that very well-lit back alley where one keeps assignations with oneself: no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions.”
    —Joan Didion (b. 1934)

    “I’m a lumberjack
    And I’m OK,
    I sleep all night
    And I work all day.”
    —Monty Python’s Flying Circus. broadcast Dec. 1969. Monty Python’s Flying Circus (TV series)

    “only an aching heart
    Conceives a changeless work of art.”
    —William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)