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Vernon Scannell Quotes
1922–2007 England
Vernon Scannell (23 January 1922 – 16 November 2007) was a British poet and author. He was at one time a professional boxer, and wrote novels about the sport.
Random Vernon Scannell quote
23 quotes
I'm no novelist.Or anything else, I suppose, except, just possibly a poet, once in a while.
The best poetry of the second World war written by both British & American servicemen need not fear comparison with the generally more well highly regarded work of the 1914-18 poets.
The servicemen of the 1939 - 45 war could not be disillusioned because they held not illusions to start with, the most common mood found everywhere was one of dour resolution, skeptical, resigned.
The genuinely innovatory , the truly 'experiential' poetry is always firmly rooted in the achievement of the past.
In the excitement and rigours of the game or battle with words and shapes, self-interest is mislaid and objective truth may often be revealed.
The desire of a poet for his writings to be in print is as natural as a painter needs to exhibit his work in public.
All true poets are, of course, primarily concerned with artifact, the making of a verbal construct, a durable work of art.
The impulse to create is pure, self sufficient, its own reward or punishment.
The authentic British poetry of the second world war was not a poetry of protest, still less was it inspired by patriotic enthusiasm
I would say that my aims of writing this book are less concerned with the facts of history than with the truth of art.
I hope this book will throw a little light on the nature of human coutage and its lack..when the last argument of kings viz cannon or war pursues its loud & murderous course.
Ther poetry of the second World War conveys the true feeling of those desolate and desperate days with an urgency and sense of truth that no other means of recording could emulate.
Of my childhood & youth the greater part of which had been spent in an atmosphere of cultural twilight.
The intellect had rejected the rational basis of belief, yet the imagination & sensibility yearn for simple faith.
The proper act of reading of a poem was not an act of passive submission but one of collaboration with its author.
The poet , absorbed in the solving of formal problems, the struggle with slippery eels of language, has no time for dissimulation and he tells us more about himself than he knows.
I believe one of the functions of language used poetically is to explore experiences and hidden sources of behavior in a way that will not be tedious to the reader.
Neither Sassoon or Owen were notably exploratory or original in technique ,each developed a style which permitted them to give a full expression to their deepest thoughts & feelings about war.
The best poetry of WW2 , the most truthful and penetrating, poetry which is rooted in the ground of physical experience, suspicious of the abstract and conforming to the discipline of provenly effective forms.
The practice of reading aloud did do something towards attuning my ear .The subtle cadences of Elizabethan blank verse taught me more than the substantial study of English prosody could do at that time.
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