A Quote by 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.
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Why should we... constantly worry ourselves... as to what should be done and how, and what should not be done and how not? We know that the train carries all loads, so after getting on it why should we carry our small luggage on our head to our discomfort, instead of putting it down in the train and feeling at ease?
I myself have never called what I write anti-poetry. I also think that my poetry should not be only known as the poetry of Ernesto Cardenal but rather as Nicaraguan poetry.
But most love poetry is awful; nobody knows how to write good love poetry either. But that's not a reason not to write love poetry. Some of the best poetry ever written has been love poetry, and some of the greatest poetry ever written has been political poetry.
When you realize my best selling books are 'Owl Moon,' the 'How Do Dinosaur' books, and 'Devil's Arithmetic,' how can the public make sense of that! I have fans who think I only write picture books or only write SF and fantasy. I have fanatics of my poetry and are stunned to find out I write prose, too!
How can any one paint who cannot grade colors? How can any one write poetry who has not learnt to hear and see?
Any reflection about poetry should begin, or end, with this question: who and how many read poetry books?
The problem, once again, as in all sciences is the attitude of the mind that is dealing with whatever field. The problem is not philosophy but the lack of intellectual humility. It is when reason becomes arrogant that we lose track. But intellectual humility with science: this is spirituality - this is the way we are with God. So we should not be scared and we must reconcile ourselves.
There is poetry in fiction. If you cannot see it and feel it when you write, you need to step back and examine what you are doing wrong. If you have not figured out how to write a simple declarative sentence and make it sing with that poetry, you are not yet ready to write an entire book.
I write at all different times. I write in my bed, I write at the table. I need to get it together. I'm working on a book and working, and just jam it in whenever it makes sense.
The average golfer's problem is not so much the lack of ability as it is lack of knowledge about what he should be doing
The problem for the King is just how strict
The lack of liberty, the squeeze of the law
And discipline should be in school and state.
Sufi poetry is, in a sense, self-help poetry about how to live a decent life, how to deal with your mortality.
I deal with students every day - from China, Germany, the United States, Hong Kong and Taiwan. And I've noticed that the Chinese students are the least trained in having a sense of aesthetics. They lack any ability to sense what is beautiful or what is proper. They can be learned and skillful, but they lack the ability to make their own free judgment. It is really sad to see young adults of 20, 25 years who were never taught to make their own decisions. People who can't do that don't get a sense of responsibility. And if you lack a sense of responsibility, you push the blame onto the system.
We should always be aspiring to know more, and to better ourselves, and to improve ourselves. To improve ourselves, because that's how we improve the world around us, by working within us.
When you think intensely and beautifully, something happens. That something is called poetry. If you think that way and speak at the same time, poetry gets in your mouth. If people hear you, it gets in their ears. If you think that way and write at the same time, then poetry gets written. But poetry exists in any case. The question is only: are you going to take part, and if so, how?
Often poetry, especially the sort of poetry I write, is concerned with looking at the borders between the sensual and the spiritual and seeing them as divided, equivocal, that mystery somehow can break in to the ordinary. And we read poetry I think in part, to gain a sense of that intimacy with things that we can't understand that are unable to be understood but that buoy up our lives.
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