This two-volume boxed set, Collected Poems of Peter Porter covers forty years of this poet's work, since his first book was published in England in 1961. Since then 14 collections have followed, including (in Volume 1) the famous translations of Martial, and The Cost of Seriousness. TheAutomatic Oracle which won the Whitbread poetry prize is in Volume 2, which concludes with an entirely new book, Both Ends Against the Middle, here published for the first time.