“It is not what they built. It is what they knocked down. It is not the houses. It is the spaces between the houses. It is not the streets that exist. It is the streets that no longer exist.” WarPoetryDestruction Author:James Fenton
“Those who actually set out to see the fall of a city or those who choose to go to a front line, are obviously asking themselves to what extent they are cowards. But the tests they set themselves - there is a dead body, can you bear to look at it? - are nothing in comparison with the tests that are sprung on them. It is not the obvious tests that matter (do you go to pieces in a mortar attack?) but the unexpected ones (here is a man on the run, seeking your help - can you face him honestly?).” MenLooksWarMatterHelpingBodyRunningFacesFallLinesCitiesPiecesFrontsBearsTestsAskingObviousSeekingHonestlyUnexpectedComparisonCowardSprungMortar Author:James Fenton
“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.” MenChildrenWarCountryDoneYoungNamesCitiesStageDrugAddictionCorruptionYoung ManDivisionPhasesHumiliationProstitutionVietnam WarHeroinOpiumMutilationSaigon Author:James Fenton
“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.” IfsWarFeelingsSimpleSubjectsFundamentalsRhythmRhymeSimplestVinesLove Death Author:James Fenton
