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Briggflatts
Basil Bunting (1900-1985) was one of the most important British poets of the 20th century. Acknowledged since the 1930s as a major figure in Modernist poetry, first by Pound and Zukofsky and later by younger writers, the Northumbrian master poet had to wait over 30 years before his genius was finally recognised in Britain – in 1966, with the publication of Briggflatts , which Cyril Connolly called ‘the finest long poem to have been published in England since T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets ’. Bunting called Briggflatts his ‘autobiography’. It is a complex work, drawing on many elements of his life, experience and knowledge, and features the saint Cuthbert and the warrior king Eric Bloodaxe as two opposing aspects of the Northumbrian – and his – character. Its structural models include the sonata form (and Scarlatti’s music in particular) and the lattice-work of the Lindisfarne Gospels, while thematically it recalls Wordsworth’s Prelude . Bunting wrote that ‘Poetry, like music, is to be heard.’ His own readings are essential listening for a full appreciation of his highly musical poetry. This enhanced ebook with audio and video includes Peter Bell’s 1982 film portrait of Bunting previously available only on the DVD accompanying the print edition along with two audio recordings of Bunting reading Briggflatts , the 1967 London recording from the CD accompanying the print edition, and the 1977 Carlisle recording previously released by Bloodaxe Books on an LP record in 1980 and featuring Domenico Scarlatti’s sonata in B minor, L.33. As well as his posthumously published ‘Note on Briggflatts’, the book includes Bunting’s seminal essay on sound and meaning in poetry, ‘The Poet’s Point of View’, and other helpful background material. Bunting’s Complete Poems is also available from Bloodaxe in both print and enhanced ebook formats, the latter with 50 audio files embedded with the texts, including all his major works ( Briggflatts, Villon, The Spoils and Chomei at Toyama ), along with many shorter poems. ‘ Briggflatts is one of the few great poems of this century. It seems to me greater each time I read it.’ – Thom Gunn ‘His poems are the most important which have appeared in any form of the English language since T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land .’ – Hugh MacDiarmid
80 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
5 people are currently reading
278 people want to read
About the author
Basil Bunting
43 books37 followersBorn into a Quaker family, Bunting was educated at the Royal Grammar School there for two years. He then studied at two Quaker schools: from 1912–1916 at Ackworth School in Yorkshire and from 1916–1918 at Leighton Park School in Berkshire. His Quaker education strongly influenced his pacifist opposition to World War I, and in 1918 he was arrested as a conscientious objector, serving a sentence of more than a year in Wormwood Scrubs and Winchester prisons. These events were to have an important role in his first major poem, Villon (1925). Villon was one of a rather rare set of complexly structured poems that Bunting labelled "sonatas," thus underlining the sonic qualities of his verse and recalling his love of music. After his release from prison in 1920, traumatized by the time spent in jail, Bunting went to London, where he enrolled in the London School of Economics, and had his first contacts with journalists, social activists and Bohemia. Tradition has it that it was Nina Hamnett who introduced him to the works of Ezra Pound by lending him a copy of Homage to Sextus Propertius. The glamour of the cosmopolitan modernist examples of Nina Hamnett and Mina Loy seems to have influenced Bunting in his later move from London to Paris.
After having travelled in Northern Europe while holding small secretarial jobs in London, Bunting left the London School of Economics without a degree and went to France. There, in 1923, he became friendly with Pound, who years later would dedicate his Guide to Kulchur (1938) to both Bunting and Louis Zukofsky, "strugglers in the desert". Bunting's poetry began to show the influence of this friendship. He visited Pound in Rapallo, Italy, and later settled there with his family from 1931 to 1933. He was published in the Objectivist issue of Poetry magazine, in the Objectivist Anthology, and in Pound's Active Anthology. He also worked as a music critic during this time.
During World War II, Bunting served in British Military Intelligence in Persia. After the war, he continued to serve on the British Embassy staff in Tehran until he was expelled by Muhammad Mussadegh in 1952.
Back in Newcastle, he worked as a journalist on the Evening Chronicle until his rediscovery during the 1960s by young poets, notably Tom Pickard, who were interested in working in the modernist tradition. In 1966, he published his major long poem, Briggflatts, named for the Quaker meeting house in Cumbria where he is now buried.
After having travelled in Northern Europe while holding small secretarial jobs in London, Bunting left the London School of Economics without a degree and went to France. There, in 1923, he became friendly with Pound, who years later would dedicate his Guide to Kulchur (1938) to both Bunting and Louis Zukofsky, "strugglers in the desert". Bunting's poetry began to show the influence of this friendship. He visited Pound in Rapallo, Italy, and later settled there with his family from 1931 to 1933. He was published in the Objectivist issue of Poetry magazine, in the Objectivist Anthology, and in Pound's Active Anthology. He also worked as a music critic during this time.
During World War II, Bunting served in British Military Intelligence in Persia. After the war, he continued to serve on the British Embassy staff in Tehran until he was expelled by Muhammad Mussadegh in 1952.
Back in Newcastle, he worked as a journalist on the Evening Chronicle until his rediscovery during the 1960s by young poets, notably Tom Pickard, who were interested in working in the modernist tradition. In 1966, he published his major long poem, Briggflatts, named for the Quaker meeting house in Cumbria where he is now buried.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
January 30, 2021
Stunning that Basil Bunting isn't more renowned here in the United States. His work speaks for itself, but just as interesting is his "preposterously eventful" life, in the words of New Yorker writer Christopher Spaide. He was buddies with Ezra Pound and W.B. Yeats, he played chess with Francisco Franco, he was imprisoned for his conscientious objection to fighting in WWI, only to go on to be a high-level intelligence officer in WWII.
Bunting believed that poetry is meant to be read aloud, that the "sound of the words spoken aloud is itself the meaning," (p. 40). The wonderful Bloodaxe Books edition includes a CD of Bunting reading Briggflatts in his crisp and curled Northumbrian accent (though you can now find a plethora of Bunting recordings with a quick Google search). Bunting believed in this so wholeheartedly that he only wrote (begrudgingly) a page and a half of notes to explain the numerous arcane Northumbrian words and phrases that appear throughout Briggflatts, his self-described autobiography taking us through his Northumbrian youth and a lost love, adventures across continents in his adulthood, and his eventual homecoming in his old age.
Briggflatts isn't challenging so much as it's complicated. Bunting is telling the story of his homeland, memorializing his own life, and meditating on existence – sometimes all at once. "Stars disperse. We too; further from neighbors; now the year ages," (p. 29).
Steeped in the folklore and history of Northumbria, Briggflatts draws upon medieval kings and madrigals. In his stingy notes, Bunting says "Northumbrians should know [King] Eric Bloodaxe but seldom do," (p. 37). He references The Linisfarne Gospels, a seventh century manuscript from a Northumbrian monastery, and apparently uses their latticework structure as a base for Briggflatts.
Bunting tells his story in seasons. The seasons of life, if you will. Nature is always important, grounding Bunting in his life and us as the reader/listener in the narrative. The slowworm (a snakelike reptile), for example, appears in the first stanza ("May on the bull's hide; and through the dale; furrows fill with may; paving the slowworm's way") and appears periodically throughout the poem, always harkening back to this first slowworm and its representation of Bunting's youth and the path laid out before him.
It's a blessing that Tom and Connie Pickard plucked Basil Bunting out of relative obscurity in the 1960s to have him read at Morden Tower, their popular venue for a new generation of poets and beats including the likes of Allen Ginsburg and Robert Creeley. The writing of Briggflatts is a byproduct of this meeting, and one urban legend says he wrote Briggflatts simply to show Tom Pickard how to go through the process of writing a long poem.
Bunting transcended generations and movements, cutting his teeth with the modernists in the 1920s and serving as a sort of prototype for the beats – Ginsburg called him "the best poet alive, of the old folks."
Bunting believed that poetry is meant to be read aloud, that the "sound of the words spoken aloud is itself the meaning," (p. 40). The wonderful Bloodaxe Books edition includes a CD of Bunting reading Briggflatts in his crisp and curled Northumbrian accent (though you can now find a plethora of Bunting recordings with a quick Google search). Bunting believed in this so wholeheartedly that he only wrote (begrudgingly) a page and a half of notes to explain the numerous arcane Northumbrian words and phrases that appear throughout Briggflatts, his self-described autobiography taking us through his Northumbrian youth and a lost love, adventures across continents in his adulthood, and his eventual homecoming in his old age.
Briggflatts isn't challenging so much as it's complicated. Bunting is telling the story of his homeland, memorializing his own life, and meditating on existence – sometimes all at once. "Stars disperse. We too; further from neighbors; now the year ages," (p. 29).
Steeped in the folklore and history of Northumbria, Briggflatts draws upon medieval kings and madrigals. In his stingy notes, Bunting says "Northumbrians should know [King] Eric Bloodaxe but seldom do," (p. 37). He references The Linisfarne Gospels, a seventh century manuscript from a Northumbrian monastery, and apparently uses their latticework structure as a base for Briggflatts.
Bunting tells his story in seasons. The seasons of life, if you will. Nature is always important, grounding Bunting in his life and us as the reader/listener in the narrative. The slowworm (a snakelike reptile), for example, appears in the first stanza ("May on the bull's hide; and through the dale; furrows fill with may; paving the slowworm's way") and appears periodically throughout the poem, always harkening back to this first slowworm and its representation of Bunting's youth and the path laid out before him.
It's a blessing that Tom and Connie Pickard plucked Basil Bunting out of relative obscurity in the 1960s to have him read at Morden Tower, their popular venue for a new generation of poets and beats including the likes of Allen Ginsburg and Robert Creeley. The writing of Briggflatts is a byproduct of this meeting, and one urban legend says he wrote Briggflatts simply to show Tom Pickard how to go through the process of writing a long poem.
Bunting transcended generations and movements, cutting his teeth with the modernists in the 1920s and serving as a sort of prototype for the beats – Ginsburg called him "the best poet alive, of the old folks."
February 22, 2018
Fondamentale poemetto, tanto complesso quanto affascinante.
Mai tradotto in altre lingue, nonostante il notevole successo in patria (e nonostante non sia di un paese periferico), dove è considerato il più importante poema uscito dopo la Waste Land eliotiana: direi che è il tempo di una traduzione, da mo' anche.
Mai tradotto in altre lingue, nonostante il notevole successo in patria (e nonostante non sia di un paese periferico), dove è considerato il più importante poema uscito dopo la Waste Land eliotiana: direi che è il tempo di una traduzione, da mo' anche.
January 20, 2013
Fantastic. I can't believe that I've only now got around to reading Briggflatts. One of the greatest of twentieth century poems produced in a wonderful edition by Bloodaxe with a CD of Buntinq reading the poem, and a DVD of a 1980s documentary about the man and his work. The CD in particular is worth the price of the book, as to hear the poem read in the poet's rich Northumbrian voice brings to life its angular rhythms and cadences. As Bunting says, 'poetry, like music, is to be heard'. Briggflatts is the Four Quartets of the north of England; grittier, more elemental than Eliot's great work, it shares the same inspiration of place and understanding of humanity.
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March 16, 2025wow what a poem, i wonder who he married 🤔
April 11, 2012
We could argue that this is THE poem of the twentieth century?
But that would be silly.
This is a beautiful edition. Though the poem is in the equally portable, equally fine collected from Blood Axe the essays, notes and pictures are worth having, but most of all the DVD is a little bit of unexpected magic. It harks back to those quaint old days when documentary film makers actually assumed their audience had an attention span and intelligence, and if they just pointed the camera at the subject and let him speak all would be well. Bunting does British understatement in spades while making tea and going for a walk. (His comments on his career as a poet are priceless. Both sad and funny and accurate).
The film maker also picked up the poem's linking of sound and landscape, so the use of Scarlatti for the river and for the mowing is very clever.
The CD has Bunting reading the poem. He was a superb reader and the music of the poem, which comes off the page anyway, sings in that Northumbrian accent.
But that would be silly.
This is a beautiful edition. Though the poem is in the equally portable, equally fine collected from Blood Axe the essays, notes and pictures are worth having, but most of all the DVD is a little bit of unexpected magic. It harks back to those quaint old days when documentary film makers actually assumed their audience had an attention span and intelligence, and if they just pointed the camera at the subject and let him speak all would be well. Bunting does British understatement in spades while making tea and going for a walk. (His comments on his career as a poet are priceless. Both sad and funny and accurate).
The film maker also picked up the poem's linking of sound and landscape, so the use of Scarlatti for the river and for the mowing is very clever.
The CD has Bunting reading the poem. He was a superb reader and the music of the poem, which comes off the page anyway, sings in that Northumbrian accent.
January 31, 2018
I had to read this for class and honestly didn't get any of it... Even after a 2 hour seminar! I do enjoy some poetry, but the Neo-Modernist style of Briggflatts was too much for me. I would say if you love Neo-Modernist poetry then Basil Bunting is a must read, but if, like me, you are more of an occasional poetry reader than perhaps give it a miss.
March 10, 2014
A raw and earthy cacophony of sound, of leaves, masons and their chisels, in remembrance's pursuit of a schoolboy love that has not left the author (this cycle being Autobiography as indicated) for the fifty years "Finger tips touched and were still / fifty years ago", the finitude of stars "furthest, fairest things, stars, free of our humbug / each ihis own, the longer known, the more alone / wrapt in emphatic fire roaring out to a black flue. / Each spark trills on a tong beyond chronological compass...." , time as distance geographically rooted in the "solemn mallet" (!) and "a surveyor's stone" of the rustic locality, Briggflats excels in communicating his first raw amorous affections in a free verse style that maintains tremendous meter and an architectonic system of sounds. Not poetry to be translated, or even to be read without a Northumbrian sensibility, check out his reading at poetryarchive.org to hear the visceral reflections of youthful love.
June 28, 2015
I found it difficult to really get the poem until I heard it read by Bunting himself, in his wonderful accent and measured intonation. The documentary on the DVD here is absolutely brilliant- unfortunately it cut out 20 minutes to the end so I didn't see it all. images and music (domenico scarlatti) to match the poem helped me get into it too. I might make a trip to brigflatts to read it there. some quite amazing imagery here. imagine a black bull being a tenor descant to a river which is a madrigal.
January 16, 2010
It is a pleasure to hear Bunting reading his work. After hearing the CD, I had to fight the urge to roll my "R's" for the rest of the day...
July 1, 2016
The language just washes over you.
August 15, 2016
Includes interesting critical material in addition to the text of the poem--a brief biography, lots of photos, comments from Bunting, etc.
June 5, 2020
Woefully underrated North east poetry classic.
Whitmanesque (if that's a thing?).
Love poetry of place and person.
Whitmanesque (if that's a thing?).
Love poetry of place and person.
February 25, 2022
I wouldn’t hail this poem as “one of the greatest long poems since Eliot’s Four Quartets,” but it’s certainly worth reading. It is a typical Modernist collage with very healthy dollop of classical and historical allusions. Part I is very good with an inventive use of rhyme, and the star passage wrapping up Part IV is outstanding.
Bunting provides an excellent case study on half rhyme in Part II:
“Loaded with mail of linked lies,
what weapon can the king lift to fight
when chance-met enemies employ sly
sword and shoulder-piercing pike,
pressed into the mire,
trampled and hewn till a knife
—in whose hand?—severs tight
neck cords? Axe rusts. Spine
picked bare by ravens, agile
maggots devour the slack side
and inert brain, never wise.
What witnesses he had life,
ravelled and worn past splice,
yarns falling to staple? Rime
on the bent, the beck ice,
there will be nothing on Stainmore to hide
void, no sable to disguise
what he wore under the lies,
king of Orkney, king of Dublin, twice
king of York, where the tide
stopped till long flight
from who knows what smile,
scowl, disgust or delight
ended in bale on the fellside.”
Translators of formal poetry would be wise to study this passage. As would poets.
The book comes with a recording of Bunting reading the poem. He is a magnificent reader. Most poets of the past hundred years read in a boring monotone, each competing with the other to sound as boring as they can. Bunting doesn’t read the poem, he performs it. His accent and his rolling R’s and his tonal changes make the poem bristle with energy and meaning. Bunting is coming from a tradition of Pound and Yeats who give very unusual readings of their poetry – very stylized and musical. Bunting takes that down a notch, but he’s far better than any poets reading today.
There’s something in this poem – lines and stanzas of it are amazing. But as a whole, it didn’t grab me. It’s something I’ll continue to read, but at this time it didn’t connect with me. If you like the modernists, this is certainly very good.
Bunting provides an excellent case study on half rhyme in Part II:
“Loaded with mail of linked lies,
what weapon can the king lift to fight
when chance-met enemies employ sly
sword and shoulder-piercing pike,
pressed into the mire,
trampled and hewn till a knife
—in whose hand?—severs tight
neck cords? Axe rusts. Spine
picked bare by ravens, agile
maggots devour the slack side
and inert brain, never wise.
What witnesses he had life,
ravelled and worn past splice,
yarns falling to staple? Rime
on the bent, the beck ice,
there will be nothing on Stainmore to hide
void, no sable to disguise
what he wore under the lies,
king of Orkney, king of Dublin, twice
king of York, where the tide
stopped till long flight
from who knows what smile,
scowl, disgust or delight
ended in bale on the fellside.”
Translators of formal poetry would be wise to study this passage. As would poets.
The book comes with a recording of Bunting reading the poem. He is a magnificent reader. Most poets of the past hundred years read in a boring monotone, each competing with the other to sound as boring as they can. Bunting doesn’t read the poem, he performs it. His accent and his rolling R’s and his tonal changes make the poem bristle with energy and meaning. Bunting is coming from a tradition of Pound and Yeats who give very unusual readings of their poetry – very stylized and musical. Bunting takes that down a notch, but he’s far better than any poets reading today.
There’s something in this poem – lines and stanzas of it are amazing. But as a whole, it didn’t grab me. It’s something I’ll continue to read, but at this time it didn’t connect with me. If you like the modernists, this is certainly very good.
June 23, 2021
Not so much a review as a reminiscence. I heard Basil Bunting read in Victoria, BC, probably in 1969 or 1970. I always remembered the reading. It was amazing. Also, he played four Scarlatti concertos and I have always wanted to know which ones they were - he said he had spent a very long time selecting just the right ones. In any event I always remembered this poem and am very glad to have it in my possession now, after all these years.
One of the other audience members (we were a group of mostly students in an informal setting) asked him if he was working on another poem like Briggflatts. Basil Bunting very gently said that as it had taken him twenty years to write Briggflatts he did not think so.
One of the other audience members (we were a group of mostly students in an informal setting) asked him if he was working on another poem like Briggflatts. Basil Bunting very gently said that as it had taken him twenty years to write Briggflatts he did not think so.
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December 5, 2023Look, I’m not going to pretend that I fully understood Briggflats, but hearing Basil Bunting read the poem was an absolute delight. His slow, deliberate reading, each word given a full spit and polish, gives expression to a poem - which he subtitled an autobiography - about death and rebirth, about the ephemeral sweetness of young love and about great kings and warriors of years gone by. It’s mythic, lyrical and intimate. And it should most definitely be read aloud.
June 19, 2023
i realized this poem was getting five stars about halfway through part 1. always a pleasure to discover a genius.
July 11, 2024
Starlight is almost flesh.
August 24, 2025
Absolute masterpiece of a poem. Technically phenomenal and the audible considerations are astounding. A true piece of art of modernism.
October 13, 2025
Sooo confusing, even as a literature student. Seems like he’s trying to say something about life and death but over complicates it. Also a pedo.
October 10, 2024
Long-form British modernist poem that actually has more in common with the American Beat poets than his contemporaries. The poem itself is untranslatable due to its focus on sound and lyricism. Truly a symphonic, musical piece, that spans the seasons as a symbolic reflection of Bunting's homeland history -- while also mixing in autobiographical elements. I threw on a video of Bunting reading aloud his poem after completing this, and the man's voice is an instrument all-its-own.
November 15, 2016
Enjoyed it, but having left this review for a couple of weeks, I'm concerned by how little I remember. Very modernist, if I recall correctly, with some wonderful pastoral imagery... That's about all that stuck with me.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews