James Fenton (1) (1949–)

I discovered James Fenton through his poetry--way back in high school, in fact, when I first fell in love with his collection Out of Danger--but in the years since, I've made an effort to read his nonfiction, as well. In this collection, his thoughtful prose and compelling style once again made me glad that I put in the effort to search out his other work. In widely varying essays on both art and specific artists, this book takes us through and around a huge swath of territory, blending biography with history and with art criticism to bring artists and their worlds (and interests) to life. Journey through history in this book was, admittedly, far more enjoyable than the art history course I took, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested. It game me plenty of material to think about in my own work as a writer, as well.

Recommended.… (more)

I fell in love with Fenton's voice and attention to detail way back when I was in high school and stumbled across a volume of his poetry (which is, incidentally, still one of my favorite poetry collections of all time), so this has been on my reading list for quite some time--I'm glad I finally got around to it.

Each of the essays here details Fenton's wanderings and adventures through revolutions, giving detailed pictures into rarely seen moments along the Pacific Rim--back and forth across enemy lines in Korea, Saigon just after its official fall, etc. Some of the moments are heartbreaking, and more of them than you'd expect are humorous, but Fenton's wry care with people and with expectations makes each piece a striking commentary on not just unfolding events, but humanity, politics, and journalism.

I'd absolutely recommend this to anyone interested in world events or history, or in revolution or journalism. Although it's true that the pieces are located in specific times and moments, it's terrifying how relevant some of them are to just this moment in time, and sort of wonderful to read about them in a way that is not just carefully observant and honest, as if one were reading Fenton's journal rather than essays, but also told with both intelligence and a tempered optimism that, one way or another, things keep going on, and people survive.

Absolutely recommended.… (more)

Wind by James Fenton

This is the wind, the wind in a field of corn.
Great crowds are fleeing from a major disaster
Down the green valleys, the long swaying wadis,
Down through the beautiful catastrophe of wind.

Families, tribes, nations, and their livestock
Have heard something, seen something. An expectation
Or a gigantic misunderstanding has swept over the hilltop
Bending the ear of the hedgerow with stories of fire and sword.

I saw a thousand years pass in two seconds.
Land was lost, languages rose and divided.
This lord went east and found safety.
His brother sought Africa and a dish of aloes.

Centuries, minutes later, one might ask
How the hilt of a sword wandered so far from the smithy.
And somewhere they will sing: 'Like chaff we were borne
In the wind. ' This is the wind in a field of corn.

I still like to find my way through a poem and I used to have this one in a James Fenton collection called The Memory of War. Influences first. Auden I suppose, with its kind of big theme and you know he is talking about politics/war/current affairs now but in the context of nothing really changing across the years/regimes. Also Auden because of the civilised values which kind of underly it. Larkin for the marriage of the particular to the general. Larkin poems typically seem to lead the reader up the garden path to the gate which usually has an epitaph hanging over it. Then the declarative statement style of the sentences - hard to quarrel with the language. And the way you feel you can visualise the snapshots - are the “green valleys” in Vietnam and where are the “wadis”? Middle East. No change there. Also so many of the noun phrases could have been the poem’s title e.g. “Down the green valleys” or “Like chaff we were borne”. And yet you could not film it because he avoids the detail, the particular place or time by using collective nouns to label humanity “Families, tribes, nations” and the different collectives also insist on the multicultural, all-encompassing nature of his message. This is for everyone and for all time, he seems to be saying. The repetition of the “wind” foregrounds this as not only a real wind in a field of corn, but the winds of change, the winds of war (was that a Herman Wouk novel?). And the reach geographically of Vietnam, the Middle East and Africa (all places which were and are the scene of war) reminds me that Fenton was also a war reporter. But he puts himself in the poem as a witness “I saw”. The twentieth century saw the “witness” grow as a genre where writers overwhelmed by what they saw felt the best response was to testify, to leave a message for generations to come. But he is not your ordinary Kate Adie because what he sees is visionary, rising above the here and now: he sees millennia pass in seconds. If he is a documentary maker then in the edit he is running the film on fast forward or fast rewind. The final verse finds a hilt buried somewhere far from where it was made. Like the hulks of tanks in the deserts of Iraq? And I notice how the singing which concludes the poem does not happen in a particularised place but in a vague “somewhere” because this poem is meant to stand for all time, for all wars and the voice of the victims of war is reduced to a line from a song that perhaps deliberately echoed Dylan’s “blowin’ in the wind”. So the poem ends where it began. I have not even touched on the stressed syllables of the poem which are maybe meant to evoke Anglo-Saxon poetry” This is the wind, the wind..” “Stories of fire and sword”. Great poem.… (more)