At somewhere around 10 syllables, the English poetic line is at its most relaxed and manageable. — James Fenton Copy Share Image
I don't see that a single line can constitute a stanza, although it can constitute a whole poem. — James Fenton Copy Share Image
In my opinion, it is easier to avoid iambic rhythms, when writing in syllabics, if you create a line or pattern of… — James Fenton Copy Share Image
Generally speaking, rhyme is the marker for the end of a line. The first rhyme-word is like a challenge thrown down, which… — James Fenton Copy Share Image
The basic rhymes in English are masculine, which is to say that the last syllable of the line is stressed: 'lane' rhymes… — James Fenton Copy Share Image
The iambic pentameter owes its pre-eminence in English poetry to its genius for variation. Good blank verse does not sound like a… — James Fenton Copy Share Image
For poets today or in any age, the choice is not between freedom on the one hand and abstruse French forms on… — James Fenton Copy Share Image
At four lines, with the quatrain, we reach the basic stanza form familiar from a whole range of English poetic practice. This… — James Fenton Copy Share Image
No poet is required to write in stanzas, or indeed in regular forms at all. Coleridge's 'Dejection: An Ode' has a rhyme… — James Fenton Copy Share Image
Those who actually set out to see the fall of a city or those who choose to go to a front line,… — James Fenton Copy Share Image
Among those today who believe that modern poetry must do without rhyme or metre, there is an assumption that the alternative to free verse… — James Fenton Copy Share
When we study Shakespeare on the page, for academic purposes, we may require all kinds of help. Generally, we read him in modern spelling… — James Fenton Copy Share
There is no objection to the proposal: in order to learn to be a poet, I shall try to write a sonnet. But the… — James Fenton Copy Share
Poetry carries its history within it, and it is oral in origin. Its transmission was oral. Its transmission today is still in part oral,… — James Fenton Copy Share
A glance at the history of European poetry is enough to inform us that rhyme itself is not indispensable. Latin poetry in the classical… — James Fenton Copy Share
In song the same rule applies as in dramatic verse: the meaning must yield itself, or yield itself sufficiently to arouse the attention and… — James Fenton Copy Share
'Love' is so short of perfect rhymes that convention allows half-rhymes like 'move.' The alternative is a plague of doves, or a kind of… — James Fenton Copy Share
Lyric poetry is, of course, musical in origin. I do know that what happened to poetry in the twentieth century was that it began… — James Fenton Copy Share
At somewhere around 10 syllables, the English poetic line is at its most relaxed and manageable. — James Fenton Copy Share
In rap, as in most popular lyrics, a very low standard is set for rhyme; but this was not always the case with popular… — James Fenton Copy Share
The Italian word 'stanza' means 'a room', and a room is a good way to conceive of a stanza. A room, generally speaking, is… — James Fenton Copy Share
Some people think that English poetry begins with the Anglo-Saxons. I don't, because I can't accept that there is any continuity between the traditions… — James Fenton Copy Share
Nobody really knows whether they are a poet. I knew I was interested from the age of 15. — James Fenton Copy Share
Modernism in other arts brought extreme difficulty. In poetry, the characteristic difficulty imported under the name of modernism was obscurity. But obscurity could just… — James Fenton Copy Share
