Peter Porter the Australian poet who emigrated to Britain.
A much-loved Australian poet, Peter Porter, has finally given up his battle against liver cancer, dying at the 81.
Peter was born in Brisbane in 1929 and started his career as a journalist for the Brisbane Courier Mail. He only lasted a year however, before he was dismissed.
In 1951 he emigrated from Australia to the UK but after a volatile relationship with novelist Jill Neville he travelled back to Brisbane briefly before once again flying to the UK where he concentrated on his writing career, joining The Group, an informal group of poets who met weekly and whose members included Ted Hughes and Martin Bell.
He married nurse Jannice Henry in 1958 with whom he had two daughters. However tragedy seem destined to follow him and Jannice committed suicide in 1974. He remarried in 1991 and in 2001 he was given the title Poet in Residence at the Royal Albert Hall.
Never forgetting his Australian roots he was awarded the 2004 Medal of the Order of Australia. He also received widespread recognition in Britain, winning the Whitbread Prize for Poetry in 1988, the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and the Forward Poetry Prize.
Australia was very much the focus of his poetry in recent years as he drew from family experiences of the First World War and touched on the conflicting emotions he felt about his home country. In fact he was highly regarded in Australia and in 1999 he received the ‘Emeritus’, an award of £30,000 given to those who have brought honour to Australia.
He was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2009 and it finally claimed his life yesterday. He is survived by his second wife and his two daughters from his marriage to Jannice Henry.
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