The Strength of Poetry - Softcover

Anyone put off poetry by university courses...would do well to spend an evening or two with James Fenton's collection of essays (Daily Telegraph)

His formidable intelligence, elegance and dry wit make this a rare beast: a collection of poetry criticism that richly rewards rereading. (The Sunday Times)

The mind that guides this pen is warm and insightful, and even occasionally right...not a word is wasted, not a thought ill-expressed (Independent on Sunday)

Why should a poet feel the need to be original? What is the relationship between genius and apprenticeship? James Fenton examines some of the most intriguing questions behind the making of the art - issues of creativity and the 'earning' of success, of judgement, tutorage, rivalry, and ambition. He goes on to consider the juvenilia of Wilfred Owen, the 'scarred' lines of Philip Larkin, the inheritance of imperialism, and issues of 'constituency' in Seamus Heaney. He looks too at Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, and their contrasting 'feminisms', at D. H. Lawrence, 'welcoming the dark'. The climax of the book is his superb and extensive discussion of Auden.