Brian Ferneyhough Quotes

Form is endlessly interesting to me, and I love poetry as a formal enterprise.

Poetry is the hardest thing that there is. It fascinates me, so I want to write more of it.

You want to know how to rhyme, then learn how to add. It's mathematics.

I've always loved rhyming. I love language.

I hear a little firecracker go off when you come up with a good rhyme.

Being able to say something lyrically, to say something that will do more than just be words, is really hard. It's easy to do when you're writing a chapter of a book or writing poetry, but it's really hard to do when you're confined to a melody line.

I love an imperfect rhyme.

I'm a wizard at poetry.

I always liked the magic of poetry but now I'm just starting to see behind the curtain of even the best poets, how they've used, tried and tested craft to create the illusion. Wonderful feeling of exhilaration to finally be there.

I like rhyme because it is memorable, I like form because having to work to a pattern gives me original ideas.

The problem with writing a book in verse is, to be successful, it has to sound like you knocked it off on a rainy Friday afternoon. It has to sound easy. When you can do it, it helps tremendously because it's a thing that forces kids to read on. You have this unconsummated feeling if you stop.

Poetry consists in a rhyming dictionary and things seen.

Poetry is one of the few nasty childhood habits I've managed to grow out of.

Many good poets are really essayists who write very short essays.

Lyricists play with words.

Poetry and lyrics are very similar. Making words bounce off a page.

Lyrics are very different. There is a clear line between that and a poem. Something that has been a source of great excitement and delight for me is this idea that I get to rhyme.

I like poems that are little games.

I believe that all blogs should have at least one set of rhyming words. Just because. Does. Fuzz. Was.

People used to say poems were different to songs but I don't think they are.

I love playing with words and texture.

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

I like poems that are complex.

My next project is to get back to that. Actually, to learn how to write poetry. I'm not kidding.

I've written poetry since I was in the first grade, and it wasn't until I was a little bit older that I realized poetry could be put to music and become a song.