Cirrus@Austlit

'This essay argues that the poetry of Australian poet Dorothy Porter, exemplified in her collection,Crete, operates along contrapuntal lines. The poet's daemonic energy celebrates the ancient island culture, expressed variously in outbursts of democratic irreverence or pagan sensuousness or hierophantic exuberance or queer subversiveness. However, this celebration is met by what reaches out beyond the celebration of aesthetic energy, towards a sifting, self-questioning ethics. This ethics questions the limits of the aesthetic and gives Porter'sCreteits richest, most disturbing depths. This double action of Porter's poetry puts aesthetics—its powers and its limits—into question. (Publication abstract)