RSSBorn ten years apart, Peter Porter and Clive James are two highly successful Australian poets who have lived in England since their early twenties. Peter's first collection of poems, Once Bitten, Twice Bitten, was published there in 1961. In 1988, The Automatic Oracle won the Whitbread Poetry Award. His most recent collection, Afterburner, his 17th volume, was short-listed for the 2004 TS Eliot prize. In 1990 Peter was awarded the Gold Medal of Australian Literature, and in 2002, the Queen's Medal for Poetry.
Clive James's first poems were published in student journals at Sydney University. His first book, The Metropolitan Critic, was published in London in 1974. Since then his writing has produced over a score of books, most of which have never been out of print. They include collected essays, mock epic poems, novels, autobiography, and verse. The Book of My Enemy: Collected Verse 1958 to 2003 was a bestseller.
Programme 1: On discovering poetry
Date of show: Sat, October 1, 2005
Clive James and Peter Porter begin a six-part conversation about their careers as poets. But at the onset of their career neither poet was a literary wunderkind. Clive James opened their conversation...
Programme 2: Newspaper days
Date of show: Sat, October 8, 2005
Both writers began their careers writing for newspapers; Peter as a cadet on The Brisbane Courier Mail, Clive as a book reviewer for The Sydney Morning Herald.
Programme 3: Down and out in London
Date of show: Sat, October 15, 2005
Like so many Australians in the 1950s and early 60s, they headed for London as soon as they had the fare.
Programme 4: In praise of poetry editors
Date of show: Sat, October 22, 2005
Poetry editors loom large in their careers.
Programme 5: On the art of being seriously entertaining
Date of show: Sat, November 26, 2005
Clive James and Peter Porter have long found each other's poetry seriously entertaining.
Programme 6: On being overseas Australians
Date of show: Sat, November 26, 2005
Both poets have never ceased to consider themselves Australians.