James Fenton

This article is about the English poet. For the Ulster Scots poet, see James Fenton (Ulster).

James Fenton. Courtesy PoemHunter.

James Martin Fenton FRSL FRSA (born 25 April 1949) is an English poet, journalist, and literary critic. He is a former Oxford Professor of Poetry.

Life

Youth and education

Born in Lincoln, England, Fenton grew up in Lincolnshire and Staffordshire, the son of Canon John Fenton, a noted biblical scholar.

He was educated at the Durham Choristers School, Repton School, and Magdalen College, Oxford. He graduated with a B.A. in 1970.

Fenton acquired at school an enthusiasm for the work of W.H. Auden. At Oxford John Fuller, who happened to be writing A Reader's Guide to W.H. Auden at the time, further encouraged that enthusiasm. Auden became possibly the greatest single influence on Fenton's own work.

Whilst studying at Oxford, Fenton became a close friend of Christopher Hitchens, and has a dedicated chapter in "Hitch-22". Hitchens praised Fenton's extraordinary talent, stating that he too believed him to be the greatest poet of his generation. He also expounded on Fenton's modesty, describing him as infinitely more mature than himself and Martin Amis. Fenton and Hitchens shared a house together in their 3rd year, and continued to be close friends until Hitchens's death. Fenton read his poem 'For Andrew Wood' at the Vanity Fair Hitchens memorial service.

Career

His debut collection, Terminal Moraine (1972) won a Gregory Award. With the proceeds he traveled to East Asia, where he wrote of the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, and the end of the Lon Nol regime in Cambodia which presaged the rise of Pol Pot. The Memory of War (1982) ensured his reputation as one of the greatest war poets of his time.

Fenton returned to London in 1976. He was political correspondent of the New Statesman, where he worked alongside Christopher Hitchens, Julian Barnes and Martin Amis. He became the Assistant Literary Editor in 1971, and Editorial Assistant in 1972. Earlier in his journalistic career, like Hitchens, he had written for Socialist Worker, the weekly paper of the British trotskyist group then known as the International Socialists.

In 1983 Fenton accompanied his friend Redmond O'Hanlon to Borneo. A description of the voyage can be found in the book Into the Heart of Borneo.

Fenton has been a frequent contributor to The Guardian, The Independent, and the New York Review of Books. He also writes the head column in the editorials of each Friday's "Evening Standard." In 2007 he appeared in a list of the "100 most influential gay and lesbian people in Britain" published by The Independent on Sunday. His partner is Darryl Pinckney, the prize-winning novelist, playwright and essayist perhaps best known for the novel High Cotton (1992).

Writing

Fenton has said, "The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation." In response to criticisms of his comparatively slim 'Selected Poems' (2006), Fenton warned against the notion of poets churning out poetry in a regular, automated fashion.

His prizewinning Sonnet sequence Our Western Furniture, later published by Fuller's Sycamore Press, largely concerns the cultural collision in the 19th century between the United States and Japan. It displays in embryo many of the characteristics that define Fenton's later work: technical mastery combined with a fascination with issues that arise from the Western interaction with other cultures.

Our Western Furniture was followed by Exempla, notable for its frequent use of unfamiliar words, as well as commonplace words employed in an unfamiliar manner.

Recognition

In his freshman year at university Fenton won the Newdigate Prize for his sonnet sequence Our Western Furniture.

Fenton won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1984 for Children in Exile: Poems 1968-1984.

He was appointed Oxford Professor of Poetry in 1994, and served in that position until 1999.

He was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2007.

Awards

• 1968 Newdigate Prize
• 1971 Eric Gregory Award
• 1981 Southern Arts Literature Award for Poetry
• 1983 Fellowship of The Royal Society of Literature
• 1984 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize]]
• 1994 Oxford Professor of Poetry
• 1994 Whitbread Prize for Poetry, for Out of Danger
• 1999 Honorary fellowship of Magdalen College
• 2003 Fellowship of The Royal Society of Arts
• 2007 Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry

Publications

Poetry

• Our Western Furniture. Oxford, UK: Sycamore Press, 1968.
• Put Thou Thy Tears into My Bottle. Oxford, UK: Sycamore Press, 1969.
• Our Western Furniture. Oxford, UK: Sycamore Press, 1968.
• Put Thou Thy Tears into My Bottle. Oxford, UK: Sycamore Press, 1969.
• Terminal Moraine. London: Secker & Warburg, 1972.
• A Vacant Possession. London: TNR, 1978.
• Dead Soldiers. Oxford, UK: Sycamore Press, 1981.
• A German Requiem. Edinburgh: Salamander Press, 1981.
• The Memory of War: Poems, 1968-1982. Edinburgh: Salamander Press, 1982.
• Children in Exile. Edinburgh: Salamander Press, 1983.
• The Memory of War and Children in Exile: Poems, 1968-1983. New York: Penguin, 1983.
• Partingtime Hall (with John Fuller). Harmondsworth, UK: Viking, 1987.
• Manila Envelope. privately printed, 1989.
• Out of Danger. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1994.
• Selected Poems. New York: Farrar, Straus, 2006.

Non-fiction

• You Were Marvellous: Theatre Reviews from the Sunday Times. London: Cape, 1983.
• All the Wrong Places: Adrift in the Politics of the Pacific Rim. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1988
  • published as All the Wrong Places: Adrift in the Politics of Asia. London: Viking, 1989.
• On Statues. New York: Syrnes, 1995.
• Leonardo’s Nephew: Essays on Art and Artist. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1998.
• The Strength of Poetry: Oxford Lectures. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001.
• A Garden from a Hundred Packs of Seed. New York: Farrar, Straus, 2002.
• The Love Bomb and Other Musical Pieces. London: Faber, 2003.
• An Introduction to English Poetry. New York: Farrar, Straus, 2004.
• School of Genius: A History of the Royal Academy of Arts. London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2006.

Edited / adapted

• Rigoletto (play; adaptation of a libretto by F.M. Piave from a play by Victor Hugo; produced in London, 1982, then New York, 1984). New York: Riverrun Press, 1982.
• Michael Fryn, The Original Michael Frayn: Satirical Essays. Edinburgh: Salamander Press, 1983.
• Simon Boccanegra (play; adaptation of a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave from a play by Antonio García Gutíerrez). New York: Riverrun Press, 1985.
• Someth May, Cambodian Witness: The Autobiography of Someth May. London: Faber, 1986; New York: Random House, 1987.
• Rey Ventura, Underground in Japan. London: Cape, 1992.
• The New Faber Book of Love Poems. London: Faber, 2006.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

Audio / video

James Fenton reads his poem "Jerusalem"

• The Poetry Quartets 3 (by James Fenton, Tony Harrison, Peter Reading, & Ken Smith). Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Bloodaxe, 1998.
• James Fenton: Reading from his poems. London: Poetry Archive, 2006.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets
• List of literary critics

Preceded by Seamus Heaney

Oxford Professor of Poetry 1994-1999

Succeeded by Paul Muldoon

"God, A Poem" by James Fenton (read by Tom O'Bedlam)

References

• Gioia, Dana. "The Rise of James Fenton", The Dark Horse (No. 8, Autumn 1999)
• Hulse, Michael. "The Poetry of James Fenton", The Antigonish Review Vol. 58. pp. 93–102, 1984
• Kerr, Douglas. "Orientations: James Fenton and Indochina", Contemporary Literature, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Autumn, 1994) pp 476–91

External links

Poems

• "The Song of the General"
• "God, a Poem"
• James Fenton (UK, 1949) at Poetry International (5 poems)
• James Fenton b. 1949 at the Poetry Foundation
• James Fenton at PoemHunter (4 poems)

Audio / video

• James Fenton (b. 1949) at The Poetry Archive.
• James Fenton at YouTube

Books

• James Fenton at Amazon.com

About

• James Fenton at the British Council
• "The Rise of James Fenton" by Dana Gioia
• James Fenton Official website