It normally happens that if you put two words together, or two syllables together, one of them will attract more weight, more emphasis, than the other. In other words, most so-called spondees can be read as either iambs or trochees.
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.
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…
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…
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.
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.
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…
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