4 DECEMBER 1964, Page 15

SIR,—As 1 told John Horder recently, I joined the Group

in January 1956. My first book, Once Bitten, Twice Bitten, was published in 1961, and every poem in it but one was written while I was a regular attender of Group evenings. I was there- fore open to similar influences while writing the poemS Mr. Hordes likes, as I was when later I wrote those in Poems Ancient and Modern. I can't say whether my work has developed, but when Mr. Lucie-Smith says it has, he means developed since 1956, not since 1961.

PETER PORTER

27 Cleveland Square, W2 [This correspondence is now closed.—Editor, Spectator.]