Basil Bunting

Basil Bunting

Basil Bunting (1900–1985) grew up in Newcastle, England, a northern mining area. He had a Quaker education and was profoundly affected by it. He traveled widely in Iran as a journalist, served in British intelligence during World War II, married twice, and had four children. At the time of his death in 1985 he enjoyed recognition as one of the most important British poets of the 20th century.

Complete Poems

Poetry by Basil Bunting

Translated by Richard Caddell

With a contribution by Basil Bunting

Basil Bunting (1900-1985) is one of the most important British poets of the twentieth century. Acknowledged since the 1930s as a major figure in Modernist poetry, first by Pound and Zukofsky, it was not until thirty years later––in 1966––that the Northumbrian master poet published Briggflatts, which Cyril Connolly called “the finest long poem to have been published in England since T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets.” In addition to Briggflatts (otherwise unavailable in the U.…
More Information

Complete Poems

Poetry by Basil Bunting

Translated by Richard Caddell

With a contribution by Basil Bunting

Basil Bunting (1900-1985) is one of the most important British poets of the twentieth century. Acknowledged since the 1930s as a major figure in Modernist poetry, first by Pound and Zukofsky, it was not until thirty years later––in 1966––that the Northumbrian master poet published Briggflatts, which Cyril Connolly called “the finest long poem to have been published in England since T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets.” In addition to Briggflatts (otherwise unavailable in the U.…
More Information
Lovely dense sensuousness.
—Robert Creeley
There is verse which is directly melodic, which seems to sing rather than speak. Basil Bunting is a master of this.
Times Literary Supplement
< Blaise Cendrars Babette Deutsch >