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At somewhere around 10 syllables, the English poetic line is at its most relaxed and manageable.

The iambic line, with its characteristic forward movement from short to long, or light to heavy, or unstressed to stressed, is the quintessential measure of English verse.

From James Fenton

Poetry carries its history within it, and it is oral in origin. Its transmission was oral.

From James Fenton

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.

From James Fenton

For poets today or in any age, the choice is not between freedom on the one hand and abstruse French forms on the other. The choice is between the nullity and vanity of our first efforts, and the developing of a sense of idiom, form, structure, metre, rhythm, line - all the fundamental characteristics of this verbal art.

From 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.

From James Fenton

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.

From James Fenton

There is no objection to the proposal: in order to learn to be a poet, I shall try to write a sonnet. But the thing you must try to write, when you do so, is a real sonnet, and not a practice sonnet.

From James Fenton

Nobody really knows whether they are a poet. I knew I was interested from the age of 15.

From James Fenton

I prefer writing in the mornings, so to that extent I have a routine. I do reading and other things in the afternoon.

From James Fenton

James Fenton

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