Metamorphosis
This new Daks suit, greeny-brown,
Oyster-coloured buttons, single vent, tapered
Trousers, no waistcoat, hairy tweed – my own:
A suit to show responsibility, to show
Return to life – easily got for two pounds down
Paid off in six months – the first stage in the change.
I am only the image I can force upon the town.
The town will have me: I stalk in glass,
A thin reflection in the windows, best
In jewellers' velvet backgrounds – I don’t pass,
I stop, elect to look at wedding rings –
My figure filled with clothes, my putty mask,
A face fragrant with arrogance, stuffed
With recognition – I am myself at last.
I wait in the pub with my Worthington.
Then you come in – how many days did love have,
How can they be catalogued again?
We talk of how we miss each other – I tell
Some truth – you, cruel stories built of men:
"It wasn’t good at first but he’s improving."
More talk about his car, his drinks, his friends.
I look at the wild mirror at the bar –
A beautiful girl smiles beside me – she’s real
And her regret is real. If only I had a car,
If only – my stately self cringes, renders down;
As in a werewolf film I'm horrible, far
Below the collar – my fingers crack, my tyrant suit
Chokes me as it hugs me in its fire.
(1960)
From the Recovery Room
There is no news, as what didn’t happen
didn’t happen. There will be news
when the world ends, which is the world
of one-and-only, and what that is
the one-and-only cannot preimagine
but only want and watch for. Yes, you are bored
by this periphrasis, something extra
to the body, a pursuit throughout the night
to the sea which may not be entailed.
To have to leave behind not just the globe
and topless towers of CCTV
but images of nothing when only nothing
may be host to images is what
a dreamless wounding is precursor of.
(2008)
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.
His recording was made on 9 July 2002 at The Audio Workshop, London and was produced by Richard Carrington.
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