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Basil Bunting

PoemTalk #74, discussing Walt Whitman's "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" as performed by Basil Bunting, November 5, 2013

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes for the episode at Jacket2.

From the Odes

"Dear Be Still" (Odes, I:9), London (4:59): MP3
"On the Fly Leaf of Pound's Cantos," (Odes I:37), London,1980 (1:06): MP3
"On the Fly Leaf of Pound's Cantos," (Odes I:37), London, 1982 (2:26): MP3
"At Briggflattts Meeting House," (Odes II:11), 1979 (London)(1:11): MP3; text
"At Briggflatts Meeting House, (Odes II:11), 1982 (London) (1:49): MP3; text
"Now We've No Hope" (Odes II:12), Keats House, London, 1979 (1:36): MP3

The Odes are available in the Complete Poems of Basil Bunting from Bloodaxe and New Directions

From Briggflatts

Part Four, London, 1967 (10:05): MP3
Coda, London, 1967 (1:02): MP3

YouTube: Video of Briggflats, from part 1, line 118. Briggflatts, including a CD of Bunting reading the entire poem, and a DVD documentary on Bunting is available: Briggflatts, published by Bloodaxe Books
Basil Bunting reading Briggflatts, Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and Coda. Recording courtesy of University of Warwick.

Northumberland, November 10, 1984

Interview with Andrew McAllister and Sean Figgis (1:19:54): MP3

Northumberland, 1981, 1982

Opening Statement on Northumbrian art (1:12): MP3
Interview with Tom Pickard, June 17-18, 1981 (13:14): MP3
Interview with Philip Trevelyan, March 10, 1982 (3:33): MP3

Interview with Peter Bell, September 3, 1981 (1:00:12): MP3

Quaker beliefs and Atheism (4:23): MP3
Music and poetry (3:44): MP3
Influence of editing (2:41): MP3
Central themes; animals (2:22): MP3
Wordsworth and the Romantic poets (8:08): MP3
Standard English and dialects (2:25): MP3
Sailing and navigation's relevance to poetry (3:26): MP3
Place and memory (2:23): MP3
Central images; the stone mason (3:01): MP3
20th century poets (4:20): MP3
On reading well (3:18): MP3
Similarities between Pound, Eliot, and Bunting (6:11): MP3
Arcangelo Corelli's compositions (2:26): MP3
Bloodaxe as King; influence of visual art (5:00): MP3
Cubist influence on design and balance (5:13): MP3

Reading from Briggflatts and interview with Hugh Kenner, May 1, 1982

Complete recording (1:21:38): MP3

Courtesy of Simon Pettet

NPR "The Sound of Poetry" with Bunting produced by Hugh Kenner, 1980

(29:13): MP3

Interview with Hugh Kenner and Carroll Terrell at University of Maine, Orono, August 1980

(34:49): MP3

Lectures at Percy Building, University of Newcastle, January-March 1979

on Ezra Pound and sources of poetry (1:35:28): MP3
on Ezra Pound and Medieval English poetry (1:03:27): MP3

Courtesy of Simon Pettet

Basil Bunting reading at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1977

Thomas Wyatt

They flee from me that sometime did me seek (2:27): MP3
The longe love that in my thought doth harbour (1:21): MP3
You that in love find luck and abundance (2:29): MP3
Help me to seek; Ye old mule (2:07): MP3
There was never nothing more me pained (1:54): MP3
What death is worse than this (1:04): MP3
My lute awake (5:47): MP3
What meanth this (2;05): MP3
Blame not my lute (2:25): MP3
What should I say (0:58): MP3
Grudge on who list (2:53): MP3

Ezra Pound

Canto I (6:59): MP3
Canto II (5:23) incomplete: MP3

Edmund Spenser

The Shepheardes Calander: three stanzas from April Eclogue (1:46): MP3
The Shepheardes Calander: the Dirge from the November Eclogue (lines 53 to 202, from "Up then Melpomene" to "O joyful verse") (11:57): MP3

Walt Whitman

Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking (18:54): MP3 (This performance is also featured on PoemTalk Episode 74.)

Louis Zukofsky

The lines of those we sing (0:35): MP3
Gulls over a rotting hull (0:25): MP3
The rains, the rains (0:37): MP3
Drive, fast kisses (0:16): MP3
Strange to reach that age (0:28): MP3
You three (5:47): MP3
To my wash-stand (2:35): MP3
In that this happiness (0:36): MP3
Happier, happier now (1:11): MP3
Ask of the sun (0:46): MP3
Passing tall (0:37): MP3
from "Poem beginning 'The'" (3:57): MP3
Perchless, birth (0:44): MP3
The Guests (1:31): MP3
Seventh movement of A (0:24): MP3

Reading at the Ted Hughes Arvon Center, Lumb Bank, August 5, 1977

Recorded on audiocassette. Featured in the Joris and Peyrafitte tape collection.

Side A (41:30): MP3
Side B (43:30): MP3

Reading at the Ted Hughes Arvon Center, Lumb Bank, August 4, 1977