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 FentonRead
In the writing of poetry we never know anything for sure. We will never know if we have 'trained' or 'practised' enough. We will never be able to say that we have reached grade eight, or that we have left the grades behind and are now embarked on an advanced training.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the uncertainty and continuous journey of mastering poetry and the arts.
James Fenton's quote reflects on the elusive nature of artistic mastery, particularly in poetry, where concrete benchmarks of skill and achievement are difficult to establish. It suggests that the creative process is an ongoing journey filled with doubt and exploration, rather than a destination that can be definitively defined or graded.
Themes
PoetryArtMasteryUncertaintyJourney
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote during a poetry workshop to inspire students about the creative process.
More from James Fenton
All quotes →If you're writing a song, you have to write something that can be understood serially. When you're reading a poem that's written for the page, your eye can skip up and down. You can see the thing whole. But you're not going to see the thing whole in the song. You're going to hear it in series, and you can't skip back.
James FentonRead
The voice is raised, and that is where poetry begins. And even today, in the prolonged aftermath of modernism, in places where "open form" or free verse is the orthodoxy, you will find a memory of that raising of the voice in the term "heightened speech".
James FentonRead
What I want, when I write a poem, is no more than this: that it be preserved in some published form so that, in principle, someone, somewhere, will be able to find it and read it. That is all I need, as a poet, and that is the beauty, the luxury of my position. My lyric is mine and remains mine. Nobody can ruin it.
James FentonRead
'What is this', and 'How is this done?' are the first two questions to ask of any work of art. The second question immediately illuminates the first, but it often doesn't get asked. Perhaps it sounds too technical. Perhaps it sounds pedestrian.
James FentonRead
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