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Ian McEwan on James Fenton
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"There is a strong case to be made that James Fenton is the
finest poet writing in English. His technical virtuosity is beyond
doubt; his long experience as war correspondent, journalist and
traveller has given him an unmatched range of subject matter -
war and revolution, the dementia of collective passions, reflections
on fate, and love - he has written some of the most beautiful
love poems of our times. He is a poet of great emotional depth
and wisdom. Increasingly, his work has a strong connection with
song. He also has a taste for light verse of exquisite charm and
humour. He is a modern master."
-- Ian McEwan, responding to a question from the National
Book Critics Circle
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James Fenton was born in Lincoln in 1949 and educated at Magdalen College,
Oxford where he won the Newdigate Prize for poetry. He has worked as political
journalist, drama critic, book reviewer, war correspondent, foreign correspondent
and columnist. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was
Oxford Professor of Poetry for the period 1994-99. In 2007, Fenton was
awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.
Faber and Faber will publish a collection of Fenton's
poems later in 2012.
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James Fenton: View from America
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James Fenton takes a close look at the issues facing America in
this series of articles for The Evening Standard.
'Mitt
won the race — but can he win over his party?' London
Evening Standard (13 April 2012).
'Popular,
cool and dancing ... Hillary is now on a roll.' London
Evening Standard (20 April 2012).
For additional articles in this series, please
visit the Articles
& Essays page.
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Yellow Tulips: Poems 1968-2011
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Yellow Tulips is a gathering from
four decades of work by a writer described by the Observer as
'the most talented poet of his generation'.
Winner of both the Queen's Gold Medal and the
Whitbread Prize for Poetry, James Fenton has given readers some
of the most memorable lyric verse of the past decades, from the
formal skill that marked his debut, Terminal Moraine, to
the dramatic and political monologues of The Memory of War
and Children in Exile, through to the unforgettable love
poems of Out of Danger.
This assembly, made by the author himself, includes
a generous offering of his most recent, uncollected work: it is
an essential selection by, as Stephen Spender put it, 'a brilliant
poet of technical virtuosity'.
(Order direct from Faber
and Faber or Amazon.co.uk)
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John Fuller & the Sycamore Press
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 James
Fenton's earliest poetry was published by John Fuller in his garage
in Oxford. John Fuller & the Sycamore Press: A Bibliographic
History includes over twenty author contributions recalling
John Fuller, his press, and the poetry he published. Fuller provides
a foreword and an interview, and each of the publications he produced
is featured in a descriptive bibliography. (Order direct from
the Bodleian
Library, Oak
Knoll Press, Amazon.co.uk,
or Amazon.com)
From the Publisher:
Established in 1968, John Fuller's
Sycamore Press published some of the most influential and critically
acclaimed writers of the past half-century. In addition to publishing
established authors, such as W.H. Auden, Philip Larkin, and
Peter Porter, the press sought to promote young poets, many
of whom have gone on to achieve great success.
The Sycamore Press ceased operations
in 1992, but it remains an excellent example of the unique qualities
associated with the small press movement in England. In addition
to a full descriptive bibliography, the book includes an interview
with John Fuller and numerous personal reflections by Sycamore
Press authors about John Fuller, the press, and the works it
produced.
View
a promotional flyer from Oak Knoll Press.
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The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
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 James
Fenton provides a new introduction to the Everyman's Library edition
of The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini. (Order direct
from Everyman's
Library, Amazon.co.uk,
or Amazon.com)
From the Publisher:
Here is the most important autobiography
from Renaissance Italy and one of the most spirited and colorful
from any time or place, in a translation widely recognized as
the most faithful to the energy and spirit of the original.
Benvenuto Cellini was both a beloved artist
in sixteenth-century Florence and a passionate and temperamental
man of action who was capable of brawling, theft, and murder.
He counted popes, cardinals, kings, and dukes among his patrons
and was the adoring friend of—as he described them—the
“divine” Michelangelo and the “marvelous”
Titian, but was as well known for his violent feuds. At age
twenty-seven he helped defend the Castel Sant’Angelo in
Rome, and his account of his imprisonment there (under a mad
castellan who thought he was a bat), his escape, recapture,
and confinement in “a cell of tarantulas and venomous worms”
is an adventure equal to any other in fact or fiction. But it
is only one in a long life lived on a grand scale.
Cellini’s autobiography is not merely
the record of an extraordinary life but also a dramatic and
evocative account of daily life in Renaissance Italy, from its
lowest taverns to its highest royal courts.
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