Fenton, James Martin

(1949- )

   Born in Lincoln, England, he studied psychology and philosophy at Magdalen College, Oxford, grad132 uating in 1970. He had a distinguished career as a journalist, as a freelancer and working for the main newspapers. He contributed regularly to the New York Review of Books. He translated the lyrics of Verdi's opera Rigoletto, setting the action in the 1950s New York Mafia world. He won the Newdigate Prize for his first poetry cycle, Our Western Furniture, in 1968, and the 1984 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for his poetry. His poem "A German Requiem" (1981) won the Southern Arts Literature Award for Poetry. He was professor of poetry at Oxford University from 1994 to 1999. Some of his other publications: Put Thou Thy Tears Into My Bottle, 1969. Children in Exile: Poems 1968-1984, 1985. The Snap Revolution, 1986. All the Wrong Places: Adrift in the Politics of the Pacific Rim, 1988. Out of Danger, 1994. An Introduction to English Poetry, 2002. Some of his other poems: "Cambodia," "Dead Soldiers," "Exempla," "Out of Danger," "Terminal Moraine," "The Memory of War."

   Sources: Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness. Carolyn Forché, ed. W.W. Norton, 1993. Biography of James Fenton, with Links (http://www.bedfordst martins.com/litlinks/poetry/fenton.htm). The Bloodaxe Book of 20th Century Poetry, from Britain and Ireland. Edna Longley, ed. Bloodaxe Books, 2000. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Who's Who. London: A & C Black, 2005. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).