Durrell’s poetry has been overshadowed by his novels, but Peter Porter, in his introduction to a Selected Poems, calls Durrell “One of the best [poets] of the past hundred years. And one of the most enjoyable.”[28] Porter describes Durrell’s poetry: “Always beautiful as sound and syntax. Its innovation lies in its refusal to be more high-minded than the things it records, together with its handling of the whole lexicon of language.”