James Fenton Quotes

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Age Today War Writing

Lyric poetry is, of course, musical in origin. I do know that what happened to poetry in the twentieth century was that it began to be written for the page. When it's a question of typography, why not? Poets have done beautiful things with typography - Apollinaire's 'Calligrammes,' that sort of thing.

James Fenton

Beautiful, Lyric Poetry, Musical

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Imitation, if it is not forgery, is a fine thing. It stems from a generous impulse, and a realistic sense of what can and cannot be done.

James Fenton

Done, Realistic, Imitation

The Independent on Sunday, December 16, 1990.

46 Copy quote
The lullaby is the spell whereby the mother attempts to transform herself back from an ogre to a saint.

James Fenton

Mom, Mother, Humorous

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The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation.

James Fenton

Children, Writing, Poetry

The Independent on Sunday, June 24, 1990.

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Babies are not brought by storks and poets are not produced by workshops.

James Fenton

Baby, Poetry, Workshops

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Windbags can be right. Aphorists can be wrong. It is a tough world.

James Fenton

World, Tough, Tough World

The Times, February 21, 1985.

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Saigon was an addicted city, and we were the drug: the corruption of children, the mutilation of young men, the prostitution of women, the humiliation of the old, the division of the family, the division of the country-it had all been done in our name. . . . The French city . . . had represented the opium stage of the addiction. With the Americans had begun the heroin phase.

James Fenton

Country, Children, War

86 Copy quote
My feeling is that poetry will wither on the vine if you don't regularly come back to the simplest fundamentals of the poem: rhythm, rhyme, simple subjects - love, death, war.

James Fenton

War, Simple, Feelings

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Oh let us not be condemned for what we are. It is enough to account for what we do.

James Fenton

Enough, Accounts

1983 'Children in Exile'.

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In rap, as in most popular lyrics, a very low standard is set for rhyme; but this was not always the case with popular music.

James Fenton

Rap, Lows, Cases

"It ain't necessarily so" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. October 18, 2002.

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A poem with grandly conceived and executed stanzas, such as one of Keats's odes, should be like an enfilade of rooms in a palace: one proceeds, with eager anticipation, from room to room.

James Fenton

Odes, Rooms, Palaces

"Changing rooms" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. September 6, 2002.

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"Love" is so short of perfect rhymes that convention allows half-rhymes like "move". The alternative is a plague of doves, or a kind of poem in which the poet addresses his adored both as "love" and as "guv" - a perfectly decent solution once, but only once, in a while.

James Fenton

Moving, Love Is, Perfect

"Slave to the rhythm" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. October 26, 2002.

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Writing for the page is only one form of writing for the eye. Wherever solemn inscriptions are put up in public places, there is a sense that the site and the occasion demand a form of writing which goes beyond plain informative prose. Each word is so valued that the letters forming it are seen as objects of solemn beauty.

James Fenton

Writing, Eye, Demand

"The eyes have it" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. November 1, 2002.

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I don't see that a single line can constitute a stanza, although it can constitute a whole poem.

James Fenton

Lines, Single Line, Whole

"Changing rooms" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. September 6, 2002.

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A really interesting and happy time was when I first went to Florence as a student and studied Italian. I was living in a pensione on an allowance of £40 a month, which was princely. I did a lot of work and enjoyed myself immensely.

James Fenton

Italian, Happy Times, Interesting

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One problem we face comes from the lack of any agreed sense of how we should be working to train ourselves to write poetry.

James Fenton

Writing, Faces, Problem

"Just keep practising for real" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. June 8, 2002.

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For poets today or in any age, the choice is not between freedom on the one hand and abstruse French forms on the other. The choice is between the nullity and vanity of our first efforts, and the developing of a sense of idiom, form, structure, metre, rhythm, line - all the fundamental characteristics of this verbal art.

James Fenton

Art, Vanity, Hands

"An Introduction to English Poetry". Book by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. June 15, 2002.

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I prefer writing in the mornings, so to that extent I have a routine. I do reading and other things in the afternoon.

James Fenton

Morning, Reading, Writing

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At somewhere around 10 syllables, the English poetic line is at its most relaxed and manageable.

James Fenton

Lines, Poetic, Relaxed

"Down in the deep dark dell" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. August 30, 2002.

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Poetry carries its history within it, and it is oral in origin. Its transmission was oral.

James Fenton

Transmission, Carrie

"Stamp of the three-footed molossus" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. July 19, 2002.

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An aria in an opera - Handel's 'Ombra mai fu,' for example - gets along with an incredibly small number of words and ideas and a large amount of variation and repetition. That's the beauty of it. It's not taxing to the listener's intelligence because if you haven't heard it the first time round, it'll come around again.

James Fenton

Small Numbers, Ideas, Example

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Free verse seemed democratic because it offered freedom of access to writers. And those who disdained free verse would always be open to accusations of elitism, mandarinism. Open form was like common ground on which all might graze their cattle - it was not to be closed in by usurping landlords.

James Fenton

Might, Common, Accusation

"Negative images" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. November 15, 2002.

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Great poetry does not have to be technically intricate.

James Fenton

Doe, Great Poetry, Intricate

"To villanelle and back" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. October 5, 2002.

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Generally speaking, rhyme is the marker for the end of a line. The first rhyme-word is like a challenge thrown down, which the poem itself has to respond to.

James Fenton

Challenges, Lines, Firsts

"Slave to the rhythm" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. October 26, 2002.

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There is no objection to the proposal: in order to learn to be a poet, I shall try to write a sonnet. But the thing you must try to write, when you do so, is a real sonnet, and not a practice sonnet.

James Fenton

Real, Writing, Order

"Just keep practising for real" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. June 8, 2002.

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Born: April 25, 1949
Occupation: Poet
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