An expatriate from Australia who has, like many with similar origins, digested more of Europe's culture than many Europeans, his poetry has ranged through racy satires of 1960s London, scabrous versions of the poems of Martial, poems on Auschwitz and the Cold War, hauntingly tender and self-critical elegies for his first wife, who committed suicide, and elegant meditations on art, love, death and sex. His references are equally broad, from low culture to high, Witty, beautifully phrased and formed, ultimately moving this new collection shows him to be top of his form. He would be a good heavyweight to have on the poetry list and Robert Potts in the TLS once said that, without Peter Porter, 'no poetry collection is complete.'