Peter Porter (poet)

thumb|Peter Porter in 2007 Peter Neville Frederick Porter (16 February 1929 – 23 April 2010) was an Australian-born poet and critic who lived for most of his adult life in Britain. He was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2002, and the Royal Society of Literature made him a Companion of Literature in 2007. Sourced We cannot know what John of Leyden feltUnder the Bishop's tongs – we can onlyWalk in temperate London, our educated city,Wishing to cry as freely as they did who diedIn the Age of Faith. We have our lonelinessAnd our regret with which to build an eschatology. "The Historians Call Up Pain", first collected in Once Bitten, Twice Bitten (1961); cited from Edward Lucie-Smith and Philip Hobsbaum (eds.) A Group Anthology (London: Oxford University Press, 1963) p. 83. In the New World, happiness is enforced. "In the New World Happiness is Allowed", in The Cost of Seriousness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978) p. 28. In AustraliaInter alia,MediocritiesThink they’re Socrates. Quoted in Charles Osborne Giving It Away (London: Secker & Warburg, 1986) p. 114. Redeemers always reach the world too late.God dies, we live; God lives, we die. Our fate. "A Tale of Two Pieties", in The Chair of Babel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992) p. 51. The Last of England (1970) Quotations are cited from the 1st edition (London: Oxford University Press, 1970). Language of the liberal dead speaksFrom the soil of Highgate, tearsShow a great water table is intact.You cannot leave England, it turnsA planet majestically in the mind. "The Last of England", p. 1. Much have I travelled in the realms of goldfor which I thank the Paddington and WestminsterPublic Libraries. "The Sanitized Sonnets: 4", p. 41. A professionalis one who believes he hasinvented breathing. "Japanese Jokes", p. 62. Somewhere at the heartof the universe sounds thetrue mystic note: Me. "Japanese Jokes", p. 63. External links Category:Academics from Australia Category:Poets from Australia Category:Literary critics Category:Anthologists from Australia Category:Broadcasters Category:People from Brisbane Category:1929 births Category:2010 deaths Category:20th-century British poets