18. August Kleinzahler to author, 4 February 2013.
19. BB to RBD, 27 February 1978, DUR.
20. BB to Hugh MacDiarmid, 15 January 1978, Edinburgh University Library.
21. Turnbull, ‘A visit to Basil’.
22. BB to Michael Shayer, 2 April 1970, DUR.
23. BB to JW, 1 September 1973, SUNY.
24. SYSB, 269. Mike Shayer thought Sima was ‘a good deal more canny with money than Basil realised. My memory was of her driving around in a big red Landrover at the same time as Basil was very hard up. She got money from Iran – and was leading quite a social life’ (Mike Shayer to author, 6 February 2013).
25. BB to TP, 10 July 1978 and 13 November 1978, SUNY.
26. Reading in 1979 at Keats’ House, London.
27. BB to DG, 29 April 1980, DUR.
28. BB to TP, August 1976, SUNY.
29. BB to JW, 11 February 1977, SUNY.
30. Observer, 26 March 1978, 17 December 1978; M. Booth, ‘Poetry for our humanity’, Tribune, 19 May 1978; ‘Put out more Bunting’, Guardian, 10 March 1978; J. Nuttall, ‘The odious creed of self-expression’, Guardian, 23 August 1980; Poetry Review, June 1978, 52–3; C. Raine, ‘Amputated Years’, New Statesman, 21 April 1978; D. Hall, ‘A Gorgeous Sound’, New York Times Book Review, 2 July 1978; G. S. Fraser, ‘Sound before Sense’, Times Literary Supplement, 5 May 1978; R. Guedalla, ‘Put out the Bunting’, Time Out, 9 June 1978.
31. CP, 228.
32. BB to EM, 7 February 1978, KCL.
33. BB to William Cookson, 5 September 1977, BRBML.
34. BB to EM, 27 March 1978, KCL.
35. Reading, London, 1979.
36. Skelt, 39–40. It is not clear if the obfuscation of identities is deliberate here. ‘Abcess’ is a fairly easily identifiable British poet and Josephine ‘Fox’ has appeared earlier in these pages.
37. Newcastle Journal, 16 March 1978.
38. BB to TP, 29 February 1984, SUNY.
39. BB to EM, 21 July 1977, KCL.
40. FORDE, 62.
41. SYSB, 268.
42. SYSB, 269.
43. BB to Diana Surman (later Collecott), 20 November 1978, DUR.
44. CP, 146.
45. BB to RBD, 13 March 1980, DUR.
46. BB to DG, 29 April 1980, DUR.
47. BB to DG, 29 April 1980, DUR. See also Basil Bunting at 80: A celebration, Warwick, 1980. The singer was Lindisfarne’s singer/songwriter, Alan Hull. Bunting’s attitude was a little churlish, considering that Tom Pickard had persuaded the students to pay Bunting a fee of £500 plus expenses, a considerable sum in 1980 (TP to author, 11 March 2013). Pickard was also responsible for some of his London readings: ‘Even though I knew they were a chore for him I made sure he was well paid.’
48. BB to VF, 7 May 1980, DUR.
49. CONJ, 204–6.
50. BB to RBD, 17 July 1980, DUR.
51. BB to RBD, 2 December 1980, DUR.
52. BB to RBD, 13 March 1980, DUR.
53. Author interview with Diana Collecott, 2012.
54. SYSB, 270–1.
55. V. Forde, ‘Background for Letters of Basil Bunting and a Remembrance of My Visits with him, March 1982’, DUR.
56. BB to VF, 2 June 1981, DUR.
57. V. Forde, ‘Background for Letters’, DUR. There was also ‘a tennis court where I am not likely to prance’ (BB to RBD, 1 June 1981, DUR).
58. DISJ, 134–5.
59. BB to RBD, 9 December 1981, DUR.
60. BB to Diana Collecott, 7 November 1981, DUR.
61. BB to VF, 2 June 1981, DUR.
62. FORDE, 63. The restaurant was Mon Plaisir in Monmouth Street and the publishers were Jackie Simms of Oxford University Press and Peter Jay of Anvil Press (Forde, ‘Background for Letters’, DUR).
63. BB to VF, 28 February 1982, DUR.
64. Guardian, 4 October 2007.
65. BB to RBD, 4 August 1969, DUR.
66. FORDE, 64.
67. FORDE, 64–5.
68. Conjunctions, 5, 1983, 76–7.
69. Conjunctions, 1983, 77.
70. PI, 41.
71. Conjunctions, 1983, 75–86. James McGonigal was surprised by the extent to which Darwin featured in the conversation during his first meeting with Bunting in 1973 (James McGonigal, ‘An XYZ of Reading: Basil Bunting in the British Tradition’, M. Alexander and J. McGonigal (eds) Sons of Ezra: British poets and Ezra Pound (Amsterdam, 1995, 119).
72. BB to VF, 16 March 1983, DUR.
73. BB to VF, 16 March 1983, DUR.
74. M. Davie, ‘How the poets pick a winner’, Guardian, 6 March 1983.
75. S. Spender, ‘Diary’, London Review of Books, 21 April 1983.
76. BB to VF, 16 March 1983, DUR.
77. BB to VF, 16 March 1983, DUR.
78. BB to TP, 20 November 1983, SUNY.
79. CONJ, 210–11.
80. CONJ, 219.
81. CONJ, 220.
82. SYSB, 277.
83. BB to RBD, 29 June 1981, DUR.
84. BB to VF, 7 March 1982, DUR.
85. BB to Sandra Cossey, 23 Sept 1982, DUR.
86. SYSB, 274.
87. SYSB, 275.
88. SYSB, 275.
89. BB to TP, 20 November 1983, SUNY.
90. SYSB, 276–7.
91. SYSB, 278–9.
92. PAID, 135.
93. London Review of Books, 7 June 1984, 21.
94. London Review of Books, 19 July 1984.
95. SYSB, 279.
96. BB to Tanya Cossey, 20 June 1984, DUR.
97. BB to VF, 14 July 1984, DUR.
98. BB to VF, 14 July 1984, DUR.
99. SYSB, 281.
100. CONJ, 163.
101. BB to Tanya Cossey 28 July 1984, DUR.
102. BB to VF, 14 July 1984, DUR.
103. DISJ, 134.
104. DISJ, 134.
105. SYSB, 282.
106. FORDE, 67.
107. BB to Tanya Cossey, 14 January 1985, DUR.
108. BB to GT, 8 February 1985.
109. CONJ, 150.
110. Interview with McAllister and Figgis, 10 November 1984. A letter (DUR) to Bunting of 19 December 1984 from Figgis and McAllister makes it clear that Bunting had complete control over how this interview, which was published in Bête Noire in 1987, appeared to the public. I suspect that a couple of years previously he would have cut a great deal more of it.
111. BB to VF, 19 March 1985, DUR.
112. BB to Tanya Cossey, February 1985, DUR.
113. FORDE, 67–8.
114. Tanya Cossey to BB, undated but 15 April 1985, DUR.
115. FORDE, 68.
116. FORDE, 68. The official cause of death was mesenteric thrombosis.
117. CONJ, 149.
118. Turnbull, 73–4
119. BB to TP, 3 June 1978, SUNY.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Basil Bunting moved into our home in 2010 and as I write this he is still to move out. Elizabeth, Jamie and Jo have been remarkably tolerant of his extended visit and have raised their voices at him only rarely.
Many people have gone a long way out of their way to help me as this book has developed. Comments on an early draft from Andrew McNeillie, Stuart Crainer, Mark Allin, Neil Astley, Diana Collecott and Steve White helped me in their various ways to find a direction.
I owe a great debt to Jamie Burton for nuanced and insightful readings of some of Bunting’s early odes. I have reproduced almost verbatim his surefooted account of ‘Loud intolerant bells’.
The archivists at Ackworth School, Celia Wolfe, and at Leighton Park School, Tim Newell Price, were enormously kind and helpful, and I am grateful to the schools for permission to use material from their archives. I am also grateful to the librarians and staff at the Beinecke Library at Yale University, the University of Chicago Library, The Lilly Library at Indiana University, the Poetry Collection at the State University of New York at Buffalo, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the Division of Rare
and Manuscript Collections at Cornell University, the London School of Economics, Kings, the University of London, The National Archive at Kew, Edinburgh University, the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the British Library. I would particularly like to thank Sally Harrower at the National Library of Scotland and Mike Harkness and Richard Higgins at Durham University Library.
Tess Satchell in Briggflatts, Lucy and David Sutcliffe of Coldside Farm, Rebecka Mustajarvi of the Poetry Society were all welcoming and helpful during the early stages of my research. August Kleinzahler, Peter Quartermain and Charles (Mike) Doyle helped clarify the events surrounding Bunting’s disastrous season at the University of Victoria in the early 1970s. Helen Keane at the Air Historical Branch (RAF), Ministry of Defence, very helpfully deciphered the notes on Bunting’s war records. Many of Bunting’s friends have been extremely helpful. Tom Pickard, Michael Shayer, Jill Turnbull and Colin Simms, in particular, have clarified issues that would have remained a mystery without their contribution.
I have had very useful correspondence with academics around the world and I am grateful for contributions from Stephen Regan at the University of Durham, Massimo Bacigalupo at the University of Genoa, Thomas Dilworth at the University of Windsor, Dick Davis at Ohio State University, Edward Burns at The William Paterson University of New Jersey, Susan Howson at the University of Cambridge, Claire Sawyer at the Henry Moore Institute, and Richard Swigg. I am also grateful to the following for various kindnesses and contributions: Enid Thompson, Tom Meyer, Anthony Rudolf, Matthew Kahane, Stephan Chodorov, Alan Brilliant, Jack Shoemaker, David Wilk, Britt Bell, Tony Connor, Don Share, Alan Thornhill, Alexander Christie, Jonathan Greene and Lindsay Gordon. I am grateful to Bloodaxe books, and by extension New Directions in the US, for permission to quote from Bunting’s poetry and to John Halliday for permission to quote from Bunting’s unpublished work.
This book is infinitely better for the intervention of my editor, Rebecca Clare, a publishing professional without peer, and I am grateful to Simon Witter for an elegant design. I must also record my thanks to the publishing professionals at Infinite Ideas: Laura Sandford, David Grant, Elaine Collins, Arthur Diggle and Tim Moore, in no particular order.
It goes without saying, so I’ll say it, that none of those cited are responsible for any lapses of scholarship or taste in A Strong Song Tows Us.
* * *
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright owners of the images reproduced in the plate section, but not always with success. Unacknowledged copyright owners should contact the publisher, and reprints will contain full acknowledgements.
I am grateful to the following for permission to reproduce images:
Front cover and 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 32, 34, 35 courtesy of Special Collections, Durham University.
5 courtesy of Newcastle City Library.
6 courtesy of Ackworth School.
16, 17, 19 courtesy of Lindsay Gordon.
26, 30 © Jonathan Williams, reproduced with permission of Tom Meyer and Jonathan Greene.
27, 28, 29, 31 courtesy of Jill Turnbull.
33 courtesy of Alan Thornhill.
36 courtesy of Diana Collecott.
front flap image © Karl Drerup, courtesy of Oliver Drerup.
INDEX
Note: Numbers in brackets after a page number refer to the note on that page.
A
Abdullah, King of Jordan 311, 316
death 325
Abrahamian, Ervand 332
Academy of American Poets 425
accents
Geordie 456
Keats’ 432
northern 11, 14–16
working-class of Venus 234
Ackworth Old Scholars Association (AOSA) 63–4
Report 1918 538(117)
Ackworth School 27–30, 36, 39–41, 391, 535(45)
Adams, John J. 150, 212
BB’s holiday with 135
BB’s letters to 94–5, 108–9, 117
BB’s opinion of 206–7
BB’s visit to 115–16
Agenda 396, 398, 399, 402, 418, 428, 504
see also Cookson, William
al-Said, Nuri 311
Albert Hall Poetry Festival 402
Aldington, Richard 96–7, 197
Ali, Rashid 296, 309–11
Alladadian, Sima see Bunting, Sima
Alldritt, Keith 6, 341, 449, 531(8)
Allen, Elizabeth 90
Alvarez, Al 397
Amalfi, Italy 109, 160–61
American Embassy gala 106
American Food Adviser 373–4
Andreae, Pima 181
Andreski, Stanislav 177
Andrews, Frederick (headmaster at Ackworth School) 29, 40, 42, 62, 63–4
Aneirin 377–8
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) 331–2
Angold, J. P. 554(328)
Annwn, David 189
Ansari 331
Anthony, Peter 454
anti-Semitism 83, 115, 178, 226, 259, 261, 323–4
apartheid 585(170)
Armstrong, George 26
Armstrong, Jean, née Greenbank 581(28)
Arts Council 473, 520, 587(219)
awards for BB 401, 452–4
Northern Arts 484–6, 494, 590(304)
part in the Poetry Wars 462–3, 467
Arvon International Poetry Competition 515–16
assassinations
in Iran 325–6
threats against Bunting 327–8
Astor, Hugh 317–18, 355, 373
Astor, John Jacob, 1st Baron Astor of Hever 318
Atheling, William see Pound, Ezra
Atlantic Monthly 429
Attlee, Clement 333
Auden, W. H. 207
B
Bacigalupo, Massimo 180
Bacon, Friar Roger 235
Bacon, Leonard 270
Bainbridge, Isabella 23
Bakhtiari tribes 277–8, 332
Barnes, Major Harry MP 91–2, 542(36)
Housing: The Facts & The Future 542(41)
Barrati, Mary, née Pound 294
Barry, Peter 461, 476–7
Basil Bunting Poetry Archive 421
Basra, Iraq 276
Bates, E. Stuart 133
Modern Translation 239–40
Battle of Mount Sorrel 43
Bax, Arnold 147
Bayandor, Darioush 332
BBC
application to 327
programme on Bunting 350
Be patient (Horace) 237
Beatles, The 395–6
Beckett, Samuel 558(423)
Beede, Ivan 103
Belgion, Montgomery 142
Bell, Miss A. M. 26–7
Bell, Clive 118, 141
Bell, Joseph 91, 542(36)
Bergonzi, Bernard 401
Berlin, Germany 157
Bernstein, Charles 163
Berrichon, Paterne 157–8
Berryman, John 319
Beveridge, Sir William 88
Bird, Otto 184
Bjerre, Andreas 139
Black Mountain College 356
Blake, William 37
BB’s essay on 52
Book of Thel, The 37, 52
Bland, Susan 500–501
Blondel, Nathalie 553(310)
Bloodaxe, Eric 365, 370–71, 388
Bloomsbury Group 118, 141, 237
Blunt, Alfred, Bishop of Bradford 251
Boer War (1899–1902) 19–21
Bomberg, David 141
Booth, Martin 499
Bowen, Stella 99
Brace, William MP 91
Breckman, R. 452
Bridson, Douglas Geoffrey 211, 350, 386
Brigflatts 363–4
birthplace of Quaker movement 30–31
burial ground 1
BB’s visit to Greenbank family 31–3
Briggflatts 2–5, 7
, 77, 341, 354–5, 428, 434
Briggflatts I 19, 363–7
first stanza 363–4
first three stanzas 32–3
second stanza 364–5
Briggflatts II 79, 367–72
Briggflatts III 265, 372–7
Briggflatts IV 361, 377–81
Briggflatts V 381–4, 395
Briggflatts: Coda 165–6, 385–6, 493
account of London 262–3
autobiographical elements of 386–7
bull, in opening 364
change in BB’s fortunes 396
chisel in 366
introductory note 361–3
Kleinzahler’s admiration of 447
love, theme 365–7
meaning 386–7
musicality 120–21
praise for Italy 171
Quakerism 390–94
rat theme 380–81
read aloud by BB 10, 13, 15–16, 396
references to Peggy Greenbank 403–4, 581(27)
reviews 399–401
spelling 531(7)
stars theme 383–4
stonemason character in 165
structure 387–90
talk on 482–3
Brilliant, Alan 416
British Columbia, University of 439–40, 586(181)
British Council 334
British Embassy in Teheran, Iran 300–312
British Medical Journal 114–15
British Poetry Wars 461–6
British Union Quarterly 178
Brockway, A. F. 74
Brooke, Rupert 153
Brown, Alyson 69
Brown, Gordon D. 7
Brown, S. W. 58–9, 62
Brownjohn, Alan 429
Buckingham Palace garden party 455
Bullard, Sir Reader 301, 373–4
Bunting, Annie, née Cheesman, BB’s mother 21, 22, 51, 116–17, 175, 220, 266
death 417–18
financial difficulties 344, 346
move to Rapallo, Italy 170
Tom Pickard’s opinion of 356
Bunting, Basil
BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL
autobiographical poems 194
autobiography 2–5
biographies, previous 6
film of 468–9, 517–18
interview, taped 524
television appearances 396, 402, 403, 517–18
CHARACTERISTICS
accent 11, 14–16, 456
affinity with children 494–5, 506–7
climbing and walking, love of 110–12
desire for anonymity 559(442)
eyebrows, impressive 403, 450–51, 506, 516
handwriting 2
storytelling 479–80