Australia, (1954-2008)
Pig in a silk purse
- Fay enfolds me like a silk purse.
- The pig in me
- squealing.
- Burning. building. twelve bodies.
- like barbecued things. they keep bringing
- them out. out of me. and Penny-Jenny.
- my little fat dear one. in her big bad ghost
- white sheet.
- Fay’s body covers, comforts me
- stop talking, she says, listen to me
- and her skin, her cool sweet skin
- talks
- and listens.
Piglets Both
- I can hear
- the pig
- singing.
- At this time
- in the morning!
- The shrill
- musical sow
- trills my dawn;
- to clutch
- and reiterate
- every morsel
- every wonderful
- falling in the mush.
Enchanted Beasts
- Circe
- with serene brow
- and her swine
- with cool snouts
- halt
- traffic.
- I watch
- the policeman
- sprout
- flapping
- enraged wings.
- As a furious
- golden goose
- he honks
- orders
- like a Ford car.
- My heart
- has lost energy
- to argue
- with random spectacle —
- animal crackers
- in my soup.
- And Warsaw
- staggers
- out of 1940
- with a wolverine
- at the throat —
- its grip
- like an incinerated street.
- The Black Forest
- growled
- on all fours
- at Hansel and Gretel —
- there was
- no enchanted island
- no wry-mouthed goddess.
- Savage beasts
- can be
- just that.
About the Poet:
Dorothy Porter (1954-2008), was an Austrailia poet and novelist. She was born in Sydney and attended Queenwood School for Girls and the University of Sydney, graduating in 1975 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and History. Later she received a Diploma of Education at the Sydney Teachers’ College.
Porter worked as a bus conductor on the Sydney buses, and taught creative writing in schools, prisons and community workshops. She also lectured part-time in Poetry and Writing at the University of Technology, Sydney. Porter’s first poetry collection, Little Hoodlum (1975), stressed themes of sensuality, risk-taking and, at times, violence, making her a highly individual voice on the Australian poetry scene. She also produced five verse novels that are considered her most distinctive contribution to Australian literature.
Porter was determined to prove that poetry could attract readers. Her verse novel The Monkey’s Mask (1994), a detective story plot with racy verse and satire of the local poetry scene was a notable success. [DES-02/17]