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society, or, in the terms of the mythology, Marsis the "natural" consort for Venus. Perhaps it issuch violence which a culture, through its ritualsand ceremonies, "naturalises" and makesinvisible. Perhaps poetry in refocussing on theculture's central myths can make the violencevisible and so allow some purchase on it. Evenif poetry may have this power, Porter suggestsat other times, it carries no weight with the hardheadedpragmatic figures who use or live bysocially legitimised violence, Mars and the godsof the social pages, and these rather than thepowerless pay the poet's bills.Mars offers a range of poetic styles,incorporating a diversity of voices and attitudestoward the subject. At times speaking indramatis personae the poems enact aspects ofthe subject rather than delivering authorialpronouncements. These poems, often dramaticmonologues or often drifting into and out of thenovelist's technique of free and indirectdiscourse, enact aspects and attitudes whichmany readers will find unpalatable. Thetechnique of the often unreliable, oftendistasteful, narratorial centre is familiar in theModernist novel, although not so in modernpoetry dominated as it is by the personal lyricand the expectations engendered of confrontingsomehow a companionable guide; it forcesreaders to search for an irony which enables theconstruction of an authorial position where theycan find their values comfortably reflected.There are a number of poems delivered by noset character and while these tempt the readerto reconstruct some core authorial positionPorter subverts such endeavours through thediversity of styles from the bardic swoop of hisvirtuoso parody of Dies [raes and his "minisagas",through Whitmanesque catalogues,prose-poetry, to doggerel like "An average boyof average guilt,/ he often used to wank,/ but nowthe knob his hand is on/is on a Chieftain tank"(p.l04). Continually the poems enact questionsof how and what we might know, and relate theproblem of definition and representation to thetopic of violence and war - do we find orimpose order?Porter's Haephestos the smith declareshimself a type of the poet as "ugliest of gods, . . .the truest maker" (p.20), and considers the "artsof peace and war". Haephestos renders thehuman pride of its resourcefulness and creativeability as he traces the progress of Westerntechnology through a catalogue of inventionswhich invariably begin with military application.The catalogue and the classical frameworkare revealed as entirely appropriate figures forconsidering the arms industry, and thosesocieties which support their economies (and artfunding) with armaments manufacture.In Mars, Porter exploits what is almost hissignature of anachronism to "make strange"images drawn both from contemporary andclassical militarism. Like Auden in "The Shieldof Achilles", Porter offers running parallelsbetween contemporary politics and the Homericlegends of war. Porter~s eye for the tellingcontemporary detail brings the backgroundlegends into sharp clarity.The result is curiously like a television miniseriesView of contemporary power politics, withits focus on the glamourous and sexy, the stars.Here History is the story of lives of the rich andfamous, the elites of the business and militaryinstitutions. Furthermore it is History seenthrough the perspective of a voyeuristic media(or medium) which being neither rich norpowerful likes to believe itself morally detachedand innocent yet is obsessively titillated by whatit reports. (The voyeuristic lingering oversomething which disturbs and arrests is caughtrepeatedly in Boyd's cartoons.)In "Caught in the Net", which revises the netscenefrom the Odyssey (when Vulcan trapsVenus and Mars at their adulterous play andbrings the gods to watch), Porter calls attentionto the voyeurism in a way which deliberatelyimplicates his own reader:A plan is being hatchedat Vulcan Industries. A hired investigatorhelps.Curiously the Chiefs of Staff had blown thewhistle.They could have kept him busy compilingmemoson the Panther Pact, but they wanted to seefor themselveswhat debauchery in the afternoon is reallylike.Picture the scene. His bleeper-watch is by thebed;someone is stationed in the corridor; it ispeach light;what the two are doing feels so good beingdoneyou couldn't name an art which touched itsfringe. (p.35)104WESTERLY, No.2, JUNE, 1989