Peter Porter's poems have always represented the authority of the articulate and hallowed. A disturbing sanity has been at the centre of his work. Concern for cultural values and the dilemmas of metropolitan life has not led to whatever ossified styles "new geniuses" might have expected from him. Porter is a man of at least two artistic temperaments. Culturally he is conservative; artistically he is adventurous, and though his staple is simplified baroque, it has been seen capable of taking whatever weight of invention Porter would like it to carry. Though I have reservations about the extent to which Porter is willing to be a diehard in defence of his particular interpretation of "cultural values", there is no denying the conviction and strength of their expressions.

When Porter is self-effacing, or testing the state of mind of a persona against what it assumes to be ideal, there is a minimum of self and only the appearance of effacement. His "I" is seldom that of himself entirely; there is a strong fictional endeavour which gives his eager imagination its chance of freedom…. A necessary part of his moral schema is that the best that life offers is close to what life offers in its ordinary way. It is when Porter is concerned to make pronouncements on such subjects that his language loses poetic shape and becomes aphoristic in a no-man's land between prose and poetry….

Living in a Calm Country, though, has more examples of Porter avoiding that characteristic fault than ever before. Rhythmically, he is more assured; he is altogether closer to the mastery of idiom his ambitious work has been demanding. (p. 75)