Peter Porter Quotes

An old art spreading rumours about / Paradise, it begs outside the gates / Of the gods: the active gods come out.

Writing poetry is the only form of literary labour which gives me entire satisfaction.

I started off in England and very few people knew I was Australian. I mean, the clues were in the poems, but they didn't read them very carefully, and so for years and years I was considered completely part of the English poetry scene.

I have no fondness for pure form at all.

Auden is an accomplished rhymer and Shakespeare is not.

In other words the pictures are in a kind of relationship with each other which is touching only at points rather than pictures being illustrations of poems or poems extrapolations of the pictures.

Poetry is either language lit up by life or life lit up by language

Love without sex is still the most efficient form of hell known to man.

It is Australian innocence to love The naturally excessive and be proud Of a thoroughbred gelding who ran fast.

I am moving deeper into my own brain.