2001
Honorary awards citation
One of the most significant poets currently writing in the English language, Dr Peter Porter, will receive an honorary Doctor of Letters degree, and be guest speaker at one of two University of Queensland graduation ceremonies tonight.
Dr Porter will speak at the 8.15pm ceremony at Mayne Hall, St Lucia, which follows a 6pm ceremony at which the chief executive of Johnson and Johnson Research Pt Ltd Professor Denis Wade AM will be guest speaker.
Brisbane-born Dr Porter is the author of nearly 20 volumes of poetry and he is highly respected as a freelance writer, reviewer, broadcaster, editor and theatre and music critic.
After leaving school aged 18, he worked as a newspaper reporter and in a Brisbane warehouse before sailing for England in 1951. He has been a regular visitor to Australia since.
His collections include Once Bitten, Twice Bitten, Poems Ancient and Modern, A Porter Folio, The Last of England, Preaching to the Converted, Living in a Calm Country, the Cost of Seriousness, English Subtitles and Fast Forward.
His work has been widely recognised with awards such as the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize (1983), the Whitbread Poetry Prize (1987), the Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society (1990) and the Ugo Foscolo Medal from Pavia University (1997).
He holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Melbourne, Sydney and Loughborough; and he is a member of the Council of Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature (London) and a Visiting Professor of Poetry at Nottingham Trent University.