Few poets now writing share PorterÕs sense of the big picture, his ability to read the small event against the waxings and wanings of culture and empire. Whether these poems look at Europe through the strata of its Golden Ages, revisit the Australia of his childhood or turn their surreal wit to the quieter domestic landscape, together they amount to a sustained meditation on the spirit that bears comparison with the late poems of Wallace Stevens. Magisterial in its perspective and possessed of a rare intellectual sanity, Max is Missing is PorterÕs most charged and direct work since The Cost of Seriousness. This won the Forward Prize for best poetry collection. 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.