KeenBrain
KeenBrain
KeenBrain

James Fenton Quotes


Share this page on

Quotes by James Fenton

Showing 1-10 of 55 Quotes by James Fenton

One does not become a guru by accident.

~James Fenton

Topics: None

Keywords: None


Suggest an Edit


Cite the source


Save to Favorites


Collect


English poetry begins whenever we decide to say the modern English language begins, and it extends as far as we decide to say that the English language extends.

~James Fenton

Topics: None

Keywords: None


Suggest an Edit


Cite the source


Save to Favorites


Collect


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.

~James Fenton

Topics: None

Keywords: None


Suggest an Edit


Cite the source


Save to Favorites


Collect


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

~James Fenton

Topics: None

Keywords: None


Suggest an Edit


Cite the source


Save to Favorites


Collect


Considering the wealth of poetic drama that has come down to us from the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, it is surprising that so little of any value has been added since.

~James Fenton

Topics: None

Keywords: None


Suggest an Edit


Cite the source


Save to Favorites


Collect


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

Topics: None

Keywords: None


Suggest an Edit


Cite the source


Save to Favorites


Collect


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

Topics: None

Keywords: None


Suggest an Edit


Cite the source


Save to Favorites


Collect


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

Topics: None

Keywords: None


Suggest an Edit


Cite the source


Save to Favorites


Collect


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.

~James Fenton

Topics: None

Keywords: None


Suggest an Edit


Cite the source


Save to Favorites


Collect


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

Topics: None

Keywords: None


Suggest an Edit


Cite the source


Save to Favorites


Collect


Biography

Nationality: British

Type: Poet

Born: April 25th, 1949

Links

Find James Fenton on Amazon

Related Authors

Lascelles Abercrombie
Samuel Butler
Lord Byron
John Donne
George Herbert
James Montgomery
Christina Rossetti
Edith Sitwell

Popular Authors

Jane Austen Fyodor Dostoevsky Amelia Earhart Marcus Garvey Kevin Gates Lou Holtz Michael Jackson Meek Mill

Change your beliefs...change your life.

Get a related quote or insight every day.

(it's 100% free)

Follow Us On

Today's Birthdays

1694 - Voltaire

1768 - Friedrich Schleiermacher

1787 - Bryan Procter

1863 - Arthur Quiller-Couch

1870 - Alexander Berkman

1886 - Harold Nicolson

1889 - Hugh Kingsmill

1898 - Rene Magritte

1904 - Coleman Hawkins

1907 - Jim Bishop

Birthdays on November 21st
All Birthdays

Popular Topics

Environmental Fear Good Home Love Politics Valentine's Day Women