James Fenton Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• 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

  Children, Writing, Poetry

  The Independent on Sunday, June 24, 1990.

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

  James Fenton

  Morning, Reading, Writing

• 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

  Writing, Faces, Problem

  "Just keep practising for real" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. June 8, 2002.

• I've not been a prolific poet, and it always seemed to me to be a bad idea to feel that you had to produce in order to get... credits. Production of a collection of poems every three years or every five years, or whatever, looks good, on paper. But it might not be good; it might be writing on a kind of automatic pilot.

  James Fenton

  Writing, Order, Years

• 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.

  James Fenton

  Writing, Iowa, Creative

  "Where poetry and music divide" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. June 21, 2002.

• 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.

  James Fenton

  Real, Writing, Order

  "Just keep practising for real" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. June 8, 2002.

• Writing for the page is only one form of writing for the eye. Wherever solemn inscriptions are put up in public places, there is a sense that the site and the occasion demand a form of writing which goes beyond plain informative prose. Each word is so valued that the letters forming it are seen as objects of solemn beauty.

  James Fenton

  Writing, Eye, Demand

  "The eyes have it" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. November 1, 2002.

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