“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
One of the 20th Century’s
most significant British modernist poets, Bunting was born to start the century
(in 2000) and began writing poetry as a child.
His reputation was cemented with the publication of his 1966 masterpiece
Briggflatts, an autobiographical long poem that looks back on teenage
love and his involvement in the high modernist period. It also is a meditation
on the limits of life and a celebration of his native Northumbrian culture.
the sonic qualities of poetry, particularly the
importance of reading poetry aloud. He
was an accomplished reader of verse – especially his own – and you can find
many recordings of him that are well worth your time.
For Saturday’s Poem,
here –
from Briggflatts
– 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?
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?
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