Basil Bunting: Man and Poet (Hardcover)

Editor: Carroll F. Terrell Publisher: National Poetry Foundation (1981) Although the major poets of this century led by Pound insisted for forty years and more that Basil Bunting was a poet to be read and watched, few people except other poets paid much attention until 1966. In that year, after a long silence, Bunting gave us Briggflatts. This remarkable work demonstrates that Bunting is indeed a most discriminating and powerful poet: one who can distill the emotional wisdom of not only a lifetime but of centuries into a few lines. Briggflatts, a work of 740 lines in five parts, is not just to be read, described, criticized, or explicated. As someone said about the work of an earlier poet: "One does not read Homer. One experiences it."  As with the work of all great poets, his poetry is not instantly accessible: too much music and meaning is concentrated into too few lines for that. In spite of this, not a single book that covers even the most important aspects of Bunting's life and wo