A Consumer's Report Summary & Analysis
by Peter Porter

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"A Consumer's Report" appears in Peter Porter's collection The Last of England (1970). A parody of a consumer's response to a marketing survey, it offers the speaker's opinions on the "product" of life itself. Having "tested" life, the speaker finds it "awkward," confusing, overpriced, and largely overrated. Still, they decide life is worth investing in, even if they remain curious about a "competing product" (implied to be death or the afterlife). Through the speaker's jaded critique, the poem satirizes both life's inherent challenges and the dissatisfactions of a consumer society.

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