Tag: Basil Bunting
Books of poems: gwallter’s top 10
For want of shelf space, I’m having to lay new books horizontally, on top of earlier books. They threaten to warp and then turn solid, like sedimentary rocks. Soon I’ll need to have another cull. I doubt, though, whether the censor will make much of an impression on the three-shelf-long poetry collection. Books of poems […]
Domenico Scarlatti and Basil Bunting
Under his full wig he looks like a successful but no-nonsense, even grumpy eighteenth century aristocrat or businessman. It would be hard to guess, if you didn’t know, that this is Domenico Scarlatti, the composer of the most inventive, quirky and joyful Baroque music ever written. Born in Naples in the same year as Bach […]
Back to Briggflats
My favourite place in England is the hamlet of Brigflatts, a few miles from Sedbergh. The river Rawthey flows nearby, and the few houses cluster around the Friends Meeting House, one of the oldest Quaker meeting houses in the country (1675). In the graveyard lies the body of Basil Bunting. In Quaker fashion, all the […]