James Fenton: Writing

James Fenton is poet. Explore interesting quotes on writing.

James Fenton: 34 quotes2 likes

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

The Independent on Sunday June 24, 1990.

“We are never such kleptomaniacs as in our juvenilia. We steal from our masters. We steal from our friends, from our enemies even. We try out tones of voice for which we are ill suited. We write as if we belong to some other period. We are suckers for gorgeous words such as nenuphar, asphodel, and pelf. And because we are not yet in command of our vehicle we get out of control. We reveal ourselves inadvertently and we inadvertently commit ourselves to some point of view that really isn't "us" at all.”

"Wilfred Owen's Juvenilia" (p. 26)
The Strength of Poetry: Oxford Lectures (2001)

“Tennyson follows his feelings in creating each line. He follows the music in his head. If you had asked him, at the end of the day, to describe the prosody of the poem to you, he would no doubt have had to think for a moment before he could answer you, not because he was ignorant of the terms, but because he had been writing a poem, not a metrical exercise. At every point, he was exerting his free will. And the outcome of that exertion was the form.”

Source: An Introduction to English Poetry (2002), Ch. 4: The Sense of Form (pp. 24-25)