Following the terrific success of Max is Missing — winner of the Forward Prize for best poetry collection — Peter Porter has produced another book of great power and erudition. ‘Afterburner’ — the device that provides the extra thrust to a turbojet — is a thoroughly appropriate title for this fuel-injected work. From his lengthening perspective and high vantage, no one is better placed than Porter to give these subtle meditations on art, life and the social mores – and few could manage them with such compassion and humour. Afterburner will further enhance his reputation as one of the finest poets writing in English today. Porter was made a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 2007, an honour only given to a maximum of ten living writers.