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Dear George (Simmers, is it?), Good for you. Not to see what the best of Porter is about is to show some sort lack, I can't help feeling. Write off his type of 'difficult' work and you dismiss the best in modern writing. What you say really does have to be said in the face of whatever simplicity some (by no means all) of the contributors here have been asking for. Yours, Alan Marshfield. ----- Original Message ----- From: George Simmers <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000 5:49 PM Subject: Re: Obliquity in Poetry. The Arcane Art. > > What I like about the best of Peter Porter is that he writes with his whole > mind, not just the bits that could be labelled "suitable for poetry". > He uses cultural references because that's how he thinks. If the precise > description for something can be made by comparing it to a Mahler symphony, > why compare it to a daffodil? > His best collections (such as The Last of England) remind my of Eliot's > phrase about the job of the poet being to yoke together the philosophy of > Spinoza and the smell of cabbage (very approx quotation). Good Porter takes > you on a roller-coaster from the intellectual to the mundane to the nasty to > the glamorous to the exquisite. > > Yes, he's annoying sometimes, but he's a right to be. Mind you, I think his > more recent volumes are less intense than the earlier stuff. > > George > > > ______________________________________________ > George Simmers > Snakeskin Poetry Webzine is at > http://www.snakeskin.org.uk > > > %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%