“Among those today who believe that modern poetry must do without rhyme or metre, there is an assumption that the alternative to free verse is a crash course in villanelles, sestinas and other such fixed forms. But most... are rare in English poetry. Few poets have written a villanelle worth reading, or indeed regret not having done so.” BelieveDoneTodayFormCoursesReadingWrittenModernPoetRegretAlternativesFixedAssumptionVersesCrashRhymeWorth ReadingFree VerseModern PoetryEnglish Poetry Author:James Fenton
“Babies are not brought by storks and poets are not produced by workshops.” PoetryPoetBabyWorkshopsStorks Author:James Fenton
“Nobody really knows whether they are a poet. I knew I was interested from the age of 15.” KnowsAgePoet Author:James Fenton
“I've not been a prolific poet, and it always seemed to me to be a bad idea to feel that you had to produce in order to get... credits. Production of a collection of poems every three years or every five years, or whatever, looks good, on paper. But it might not be good; it might be writing on a kind of automatic pilot.” FeelsWritingYearsLooksKindIdeasMightOrderThreeFiveProducePoetPaperProductionsCreditBe GoodFive YearsCollectionsThree YearsPilotsBad Ideas Author:James Fenton
“"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.” KindMovingPerfectLove IsHalfPoetSolutionsAlternativesDecentAddressesConventionsRhymePlagueDove Author:James Fenton
“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.” KnowsDoneBeautifulCoursesWrittenHappenedCenturyPoetPagesMusicalPoetry IsWhy NotBeautiful ThingsTwentieth CenturyTypographyLyric Poetry Author:James Fenton
“Some of my educated Filipino friends were aspiring poets, but their aspirations were all in the direction of the United States. They had no desire to learn from the bardic tradition that continued in the barrios. Their ideal would have been to write something that would get them to Iowa, where they would study creative writing.” WritingHas BeensStatesDesireUnitedUnited StatesCreativeStudyPoetIdealsTraditionEducatedAspirationCreative WritingIowaFilipinoDesire To Learn Author:James Fenton
“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.” WritingTryingRealOrderPracticePoetProposalSonnetObjections Author:James Fenton
“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.” FirstsArtHandsAgeTodayFormChoicesLinesEffortPoetFundamentalsStructureRhythmVanityDevelopingCharacteristicsIdiom Author:James Fenton
