Selected Poems

by Fenton, James

• ISBN13: 9780374260651
• ISBN10: 0374260656
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-10-17
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Summary

Listen to what they did. Don't listen to what they said. What was written in blood Has been set up in lead. Â--from Â"Blood and LeadÂ" The leading poet of his generation, James Fenton has over the course of his career built a body of work breathtaking in its range and sensibility. From the passionate political poems that launched him into fame to the intimate illuminations of loveÂ--and loss of loveÂ--in his later work, Fenton's poetry has always been marked by formal daring, wit, and an abiding empathy for the victims of war and political oppression. With selections from all of his published work sinceThe Memory of War, the entire text of his librettoThe Love Bomb, and new, previously uncollected poems,Selected Poemsis an imaginative and formal tour de force.

Author Biography

James Fenton was born in Lincoln, England, in 1949. His volumes of poetry include Terminal Moraine, The Memory of War, Children in Exile, and Out of Danger. He was Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1994 to 1999.

Table of Contents

Author's Note	vii
I. FROM The Memory of War AND Children in Exile
Wind	3	(2)
A German Requiem	5	(11)
Cambodia	16	(1)
Ina Notebook	17	(2)
Dead Soldiers	19	(3)
Lines for Translation into Any Language	22	(2)
Children in Exile	24	(9)
God, A Poem	33	(2)
The Skip	35	(6)
II. FROM Out of Danger
Beauty, Danger and Dismay	41	(1)
Out of Danger	42	(1)
Serious	43	(1)
The Ideal	44	(1)
Hinterhof	45	(1)
The Possibility	46	(1)
The Mistake	47	(2)
I'll Explain	49	(1)
In Paris with You	50	(2)
The Milkfish Gatherers	52	(4)
Jerusalem	56	(4)
For Andrew Wood	60	(2)
Out of the East	62	(7)
Blood and Lead	69	(1)
The Ballad of the Imam and the Shah	70	(4)
I Saw a Child	74	(2)
Tiananmen	76	(2)
The Ballad of the Shrieking Man	78	(6)
Fireflies of the Sea	84	(2)
Cut-Throat Christ	86	(5)
Gabriel	91	(2)
The Ballad of the Birds	93	(4)
I Know What I'm Missing	97	(2)
Here Come the Drum Majorettes!	99	(5)
The Orange Dove of Fiji	104	(3)
The Exchange	107	(2)
An Indistinct Inscription Near Kom Ombo	109	(2)
III. The Love Bomb	111	(70)
IV. Recent Work
Memorial	181	(1)
Yellow Tulips	182	(2)
Martine's Song	184	(1)
Everything in Your Window Is a Sign	185	(2)
Was That Your Idea of Love?	187	(3)
The Alibi	190	(1)
I Kept That Gun	191	(2)
Down to the Twigs and Seeds	193	(2)
Never Let Me See You Suffer	195