I was met with sadness today as news circulated that Australian poet and verse novelist Dorothy Featherstone Porter died early this morning from complications caused by breast cancer.
She is (not was) a writer who courted spark and unknowingly commanded the respect from all who knew and read her. Her agent (and very good friend) Jenny Darling said Porter was at the 'height of her powers.' After feasting on El Dorado on the first day of its release, I couldn't have said anything closer to the truth.
I struggled to savour it on its first reading, but have since returned to it, languishing over the sparse, yet delicious undertones of narrative and plot. If you've never read Porter, do yourself a favour and start with either The Monkey's Mask or Wild Surmise.
A recent poem Foggy Windows, had been published in the Spring edition of 'Overland' and it displays the tight grasp Porter has with language and its relationship to the every day.
My own verse novel - 'seven layers of a wound' (extract below) - was in part inspired by Dot and my only hope is that by the time it has been brutalised by a merciless edit, it will be half as good as any of her work.
Condolences go out to both her family and partner, novelist Andrea Goldsmith.
Porter will always be a revelation, from Crete to The Monkey's Mask and beyond. Dorothy Porter, I salute you.
Pax vobiscum
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
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