The poetic 'songs of life'

 “Whether you listen to a piece of music, or a poem, or look at a picture or a jug, or a piece of sculpture, what matters about it is not what it has in common with others of its kind, but what is singularly its own.” – Basil Bunting

 

Bunting was born to start the century (March of 1900) in which he became one of Great Britain’s most significant modernist poets.  He started writing poetry as a child, cementing his reputation with his 1966 autobiographical masterpiece Briggflatts   He wrote and published right up to his death in 1985.

 

A lifelong music lover, he often emphasized the sonic qualities of poetry and liked reading his poetry aloud.  Many recordings of him reading are widely available.  For Saturday’s Poem – from Briggflatts – here is Bunting’s,

 

                                    CODA

A strong song tows
us, long earsick.
Blind, we follow
rain slant, spray flick
to fields we do not know.

Night, float us.
Offshore wind, shout,
ask the sea
what’s lost, what’s left,
what horn sunk,
what crown adrift?

Where we are who knows
of kings who sup
while day fails? Who,
swinging his axe
to fell kings, guesses
where we go?