[New-Poetry] Basil Bunting

[cris cheek]

Bunting IS in the best available anthology for 20th Century British &  
Irish Poetry, the Oxford; alongside several other poets that ought to  
be more widely discussed i the US . . . Brian Coffey, WS Graham, Lyn  
Robert . . .

go Jeff

Bunting's ear is a fine one

cris


On Feb 2, 2009, at 11:11 AM, Jeff Newberry wrote:

> I've been reading Keith Tuma's By Obstinate Isles:  Modern and  
> Postmodern British Poetry and American Readers and his Anthology of  
> Twentieth-Century British & Irish Poetry for my comprehensive  
> examinations.
>
> I wanted to start a conversation about a few poets that I've been  
> reading, poets who've not been on my radar until I started reading  
> for my exams.  So, forgive me if some of my questions of  
> observations seem elementary or self-evident.
>
> By far, one of the most fascinating poets I've come across is Basil  
> Bunting, a name I'd never heard, despite my undergraduate and  
> graduate years as an English major.  I like Briggflats quite a lot,  
> though I'm still grappling with the poem.  Bunting's lines with  
> their heavy stresses and Anglo-saxon vocabulary remind me of  
> Pound's translation of "The Seafarer."  The poem itself is a  
> Modernist epic (I think), so I think of Eliot and Pound immediately.
>
> But Bunting's concern with a particular place contrasts with  
> Eliot's more "universal" (not quite the right word, I know--maybe  
> "far-reaching?") concerns.  Bunting seems concerned primarily with  
> this place (his place?):  Northumbria.  The poem burrows down into  
> the landscape, carving itself into the land, not unlike the mason  
> carving stone in the poem's opening lines.  Despite his concern  
> with landscape, however, Bunting can't help bringing in a dose of  
> mythology in a later part of the poem.  Indeed, the poem moves  
> through seasons, cyclically, depending primarily on recieved  
> notions--such as Spring being a time of rebirth and so on.
>
> So, I'm wondering, what are your thoughts on Bunting?  And why on  
> earth is he so ignored?  He doesn't appear (a colleague tells me-- 
> I've not checked) in the Norton Anthology of British Literature.   
> Perhaps he's not ignored; perhaps I've just missed him.   
> Nonetheless, I thought I'd try to open up a conversation about a  
> poet who really has my ear right now.
>
> Best,
> Jeff Newberry
>
> -- 
>
> <ATT00001.txt>

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