Dorothy Featherstone Porter (1954–2008)
Forfatter af The Monkey's Mask
Om forfatteren
Værker af Dorothy Featherstone Porter
Auroral Corona with two figures 1 eksemplar
Poems January-August 2004 1 eksemplar
The Arrows 1 eksemplar
Associated Works
Satte nøgleord på
Almen Viden
- Fødselsdato
- 1954-03-26
- Dødsdag
- 2008-12-10
- Køn
- female
- Nationalitet
- Australia
- Land (til kort)
- Australia
Medlemmer
Anmeldelser
Lister
Hæderspriser
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Associated Authors
Statistikker
- Værker
- 21
- Also by
- 2
- Medlemmer
- 639
- Popularitet
- #39,445
- Vurdering
- 3.6
- Anmeldelser
- 12
- ISBN
- 65
- Sprog
- 2
Do I need to go on?
Yes, OK, the mystery is eminently guessable – and yes, all right, the poetry is a bit creaky in places – and yes, fine, the lesbian aesthetic is a bit 90s and worthy…but come on. It's an Australian lesbian erotic murder mystery written in verse.
Previous verse-novels I've read have been written in chapter-length running poetry. This one, by contrast, is made up of individual titled poems of a page or two each, so that reading it really does feel more like reading a poetry collection than a long poem. It's an interesting and surprisingly rewarding way of being told a story.
HER CLEVER HAND
My car cassettes clatter
at Diana's feet
“Don't you listen to boys?”
“I've spent my whole life
listening to boys.”
I answer on feminist autopilot
she crosses her legs
she's wearing a dress
I drive and perve
her calves do a silky stretch
her hand taut with blue veins
as she slots in k. d. lang
“Butch country 'n' western”
she murmurs in the raunchy riffs
“Don't you ever forget I'm a dyke?”
she slips her clever hand
between my thighs
to make me quiet.
If you're not generally a big fan of poetry, you shouldn't worry – neither is our cynical PI Jill Fitzpatrick. Much of the plot of The Monkey's Mask revolves around the Sydney poetry scene, and Porter has enormous fun pastiching the style of student poets or the kind of minor celebrities that like to wow the middle classes at public readings.
We shake hands
and I'm stuck
how do you talk to poets?
I'm not known for my love
of fluffy clouds
fields of daffodils
or brumbies on a moonlit night
give me a good bottle of wine
a woman with spit and spark
and the Trifecta at Randwick
As you can see, Porter makes good use of the Australian vernacular – there are references in here to koels, chooks, middies, and innumerable kinds of women from ‘ex-Mulawa koories / To Toorak lipstick dykes’.
I mean, there are all kind of reasons to like this, and most of the potential criticisms just feel ungenerous. For god's sake, it's an Australian lesbian erotic murder mystery written in verse.… (mere)