A Consumer’s Report by Peter Porter
The name of the product I tested is Life,
I have completed the form you sent me and understand that my answers are confidential.
I had it as a gift,
I didn't feel much while using it, in fact I think I’d have liked to be more excited,
It seemed gentle on the hands but left an embarrassing deposit behind.
It was not economical and I have used much more than I thought
(I suppose I have about half left but it's difficult to tell)- although the instructions are fairly large there are so many of them
I don't know which to follow, especially as they seem to contradict each other.
I'm not sure such a thing should be put in the way of children-
It's difficult to think of a purpose for it. One of my friends says it's just to keep its maker in a job.
Also the price is much too high.
Things are piling up so fast, after all, the world got by for a thousand million years without this, do we need it now?
(Incidentally, please ask your man to stop calling me "respondant",
I don't like the sound of it.)
There seems to be a lot of different labels, sizes and colours should be uniform, the shape is awkward, it's waterproof but not heat resistant, it doesn't keep yet it's very difficult to get rid of: whenever they make it cheaper they seem to put less in-if you say you don't want it, then it's delivered anyway.
I'd agree it's a popular product, it's got into the language; people even say they're on the side of it.
Personally I think it's overdone, a small thing people are ready to behave badly about. I think we should take it for granted. If it's experts are caled philosophers or market researchers or historians, we shouldn't care. We are the consumers and the last law makers. So finally, I'd buy it.
But the question of a "best buy"
I'd like to leave until I get the competitive product you said you'd send.

This poem is an extended metaphor which compares life to products that are consumed. I read the poem to be a satire critisizing the the capitalist state of society. Life is a commodity which can be bought, sold and returned if necessary. Everyone with a life is considered a consumer, which is true of the capitalist society anyhow. The consumer in the last two lines says "I'd like to leave it until I get the competitive product you said you'd send". The closing lines of this poem show how people (consumers) in this society are never satisfied and are on a constant pursuit of something better than they already have. This poem, although written in 1929, has extreme relevance to the materialistic and superficial society in which we live today, North America.

Peter Porter worked in an advertising agency for some time, and he clearly uses some of this experience in “A Consumer’s Report”. The ‘product’ that he is testing in the poem is life itself, and he approaches it as if it were in fact simply something that can be bought and then used or discarded. He does, however, point out “it’s very difficult to get rid of”, and even “if you say you don’t / want it, then it’s delivered anyway”. The poem makes fun of much advertising and consumer-report writing, but beneath the fun there is a truly and disturbingly serious set of ideas.

The structure of the poem suggests a series of answers to questions put to the ‘respondent’ in a questionnaire. The first 16 lines sound like the entries in boxes on the form, but after that the tone becomes slightly more generalized as if the respondent is becoming disenchanted with having to give limited answers to specific questions (there is a parenthesis berating the company for demanding this). The responses then become briefer and follow quickly on each other, but although the language is still that of a consumer report, the focus is more obviously on aspects of experience.

the consumer's report is about a man comparing life as a product to another product. at the beginning he says it was not economical- meaning- he wasted his life and did not nothing with. with him saying he has half about left- shows that this man is elder who is not proud of his life as according to him, it left a embarrassing deposit behind. the man feels that life is too overrated as he complains that the population is increasing and things have become more expensive which he say that the world doesn't need it as we got by without alot of these things for millions of years. when he speaks of labels and different sizes, colors- hes actually speaking of the human race saying that everyone is different physically . he also speaks of our skin saying it is water resident and not heat ( for eg. u can go swimming and the water doesn't seep through ur skin while fire does.) he then talks about pregnancy- where he says if you don't want it- its delivered anyways. as in baby... at the end the man is really comparing life as a product to death to see which is better since the life he has lived was not a good one- technically this man sounds suicidal at the end... mansions but