At four lines, with the quatrain, we reach the basic stanza form familiar from a whole range of English poetic practice. This is the length of the ballad stanza, the verse of a hymn, and innumerable other kinds of verse.
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 … - James Fenton
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 …
- James Fenton
Windbags can be right. Aphorists can be wrong. It is a tough world. - James Fenton
Windbags can be right. Aphorists can be wrong. It is a tough world.
Babies are not brought by storks and poets are not produced by workshops. - James Fenton
Babies are not brought by storks and poets are not produced by workshops.
Saigon was an addicted city, and we were the drug: the corruption of children, the mutilation of young men, the prostitution of women, the humiliatio… - 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 humiliatio…
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 su… - 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 su…
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
The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation.
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 th… - 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 th…
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
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.
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
One problem we face comes from the lack of any agreed sense of how we should be working to train ourselves to write poetry.
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