What a Piece of Work is a 1999 verse novel by Australian poet Dorothy Porter which was shortlisted for the 2000 Miles Franklin Award.
Overview
What a Piece of Work is a 1999 verse novel by Australian poet Dorothy Porter 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
