"James Martin Fenton" FRSL FRSA is an English poet, journalist and literary critic. He is a former Oxford Professor of Poetry.

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One does not become a guru by accident.

178

Saigon was an addicted city, and we were the drug: the corruption of children, the mutilation of young men, the prostitution of women, the humiliation of the old, the division of the family, the division of the country-it had all been done in our name... The French city... had represented the opium stage of the addiction. With the Americans had begun the heroin phase.

161

When Mr Ackroyd says that in the 18th century, stranglers bit off the noses of their victims, I feel that he probably knows what he is talking about. I just wish he hadn't told me.

160

The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation.

140

Imitation, if it is not forgery, is a fine thing. It stems from a generous impulse, and a realistic sense of what can and cannot be done.

79