FCC club lunch with James FENTON

Speaker: James FENTON
Poet
Topic: From journalism to poetry

This event is co-hosted by the FCC and the British Council in partnership with “TDC / Hong Kong Book Fair”.

Mr. FENTON is one of the most acclaimed poets of his generation, and many of his well known poems demonstrate his interest in world politics and contemporary society. Why did he choose to combine the traditional literary forms with views on current events? How does his experience as a foreign correspondent for The Guardian influence his literary creations? Does he find it challenging to switch between journalism and poetry, between politics and the arts?

Born in Lincoln in 1949, FENTON was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he won the Newdigate Prize for poetry. He has worked as a political journalist, drama critic, book reviewer, war correspondent, foreign correspondent and columnist. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was Oxford Professor of Poetry for 1994-99. In 2007, FENTON was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and is the editor of The New Faber Book of Love Poems and D. H. Lawrence’s Selected Poems.