''What a Piece of Work'' is a 1999

verse novel A verse novel is a type of narrative poetry in which a novel-length narrative is told through the medium of poetry rather than prose. Either simple or complex stanzaic verse-forms may be used, but there will usually be a large cast, multiple voi ...

by Australian poet

Dorothy Porter Dorothy Featherstone Porter (26 March 1954 – 10 December 2008) was an Australian poet. She was a recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award for lifetime achievement in poetry. Early life Porter was born in Sydney. Her father was barrister ...

which was shortlisted for the 2000 Miles Franklin Award.

Notes

* Dedication: for Judith Beveridge * Epigraph: What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god. William Shakespeare, ''Hamlet'' * All the stages or processes of alchemy are distinguished by colours ... Latin alchemists nearly always commence with the nigredo, the dark, black stage of melancholy, death and mortification. Mark Haeffner, ''Dictionary of Alchemy'' * For it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. C.G.Jung, ''Mysterium Conjunctionis''

Author's notes

In an address to the Tasmanian Writers' and Readers' festival in August 1999, Porter stated: "This is a verse novel in the voice of a male psychiatrist, Doctor Peter Cyren, working in Sydney's Callan Park Mental Hospital in the late 60s, who goes from pretty bad to heinous worse. My model here was Shakespeare with his black-hearted but full blooded creations such as Macbeth and Iago. The challenge is to make bad men good company. And Shakespeare takes that hurdle with magnificent ease."

Reviews

* ''The Sydney Morning Herald''"A Piece of Work and Then Some" by Peter Craven, ''The Sydney Morning Herald'', 9 January 2009
/ref>

Awards and nominations

* 2000 shortlisted

Miles Franklin Literary Award The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–19 ...

References

1999 Australian novels Verse novels {{Australia-book-stub