Reference code: GB-0033-BUN
Title: Basil Bunting Poetry Archive: Manuscripts
Dates of creation: 1920s-
Extent: 7 metres (in total)
Origination: Basil Bunting (1900-1985)
Basil Bunting's poetry is deeply rooted in the landscape, history, language and culture of his native Northumbria, where he spent his youth, and to which he returned for the last three decades of his life. A close friend of Ezra Pound and Louis
Zukovsky, he was associated in the thirties with the American “Objectivist” poets. In the fifties and early sixties his work suffered a period of eclipse, but his reputation was re-established by the publication in
1965 of his long poem
Briggflatts.
Principal pamphlets and books of poems:
Redimiculum matellarum (1930),
Poems 1950 (1950),
The spoils (1965),
First book of odes (1965),
Loquitur (1965),
Briggflatts (1966),
Two poems (1967),
What the chairman told Tom (1967),
Collected
poems (1968, later eds with additional material 1970, 1978, 1985),
Selected poems of Joseph Skipsey, ed. Basil Bunting (1976),
Complete poems (1994).
Biographical details:
1900-1918 born 1 March 1900 at Scotswood on Tyne; childhood spent in North East England, except for education at Ackworth and Leighton Park schools (both Quaker establishments).
1918-1919 imprisoned as conscientious
objector, World War I.
1920-1930 student at London School of Economics, briefly secretary to Harry Barnes, Newcastle M.P., and assistant in Paris to Ford Madox Ford on the
Transatlantic review. Visited his mentor
Ezra Pound at Rapallo and settled there briefly. Returned to England 1924, lectured at a Northumberland workingmen's college. Bohemian life in London literary circles, journalist, music critic for
The outlook and
The town crier. Retreated to rural Northumberland to write poetry, helped by patroness Margaret de Silver.
1930-1940 Married Marian Culver 1930 (2 daughters; 1 son, whom he never saw; wife left him 1937). Unsettled
existence during the thirties in USA, at Rapallo with Pound, and in the Canaries. Sailed his boat and attended nautical school 1937-38.
1940-1952 War service in RAF (in Intelligence; served in Iran, thanks to knowledge of classical Persian
acquired in order to read Firdausi to Pound) ending as Squadron Leader. Vice Consul Isfahan, Assistant Counsellor, British embassy, Teheran 1947-1948. Married Sima Alladallian 1948 (1 daughter, 1 son). Times correspondent in Teheran 1949-1952;
expelled from Iran 1952.
1952-1985 Sub-editor
Newcastle Daily Journal and later
Newcastle Evening Chronicle 1954-1966. 1964 onwards, creative resurgence, stimulated by the young
Newcastle poet, Tom Pickard. Northern Arts fellow in poetry at the Universities of Durham and Northumberland 1968-1970. President of the Poetry Society 1972. President of Northern Arts 1974-1977. Died 17 April 1985.
Durham University Library's Basil Bunting Poetry Archive was founded in 1987, with the purchase of the collection on Bunting formed by his biographer, Roger Guedalla. The Archive continues to grow, and is now the most extensive collection in the
UK of Bunting's work and of material relating to him.
An extensive collection of published works by and relating to Basil Bunting, manuscripts and papers, photographs, cinefilms and sound recordings; Bunting believed that sound was integral to poetic form, and that poetry must be heard. The
manuscripts and papers include drafts by a number of other poets (notably D.G. Bridson, Robert Allison Evans, Lorine Niedecker and Louis Zukovsky), which they or their friends sent to Bunting for comment.
Acquired by purchase and gift from various sources, 1987 onwards, with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, Purchase Grant Fund, English Estates North and others.
Permission to make any published use of material from the collection must be sought in advance from the Sub-Librarian, pecial Collections (e-mail PG.Library@durham.ac.uk) and, where appropriate, from the copyright owner. The Library will assist
where possible with identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material.
The collection contains many photocopies: most were supplied by the then owner of the document for use in the Archive, but a few were supplied by other repositories with restrictions on their future use. These are identified within the list, and
while they are available for consultation here any copies or permission to quote from these items must be obtained from the custodians of the document (as well as anyone holding the copyright for the document contents) and cannot be supplied by the
Archive.
The Archive is arranged in 5 sections:
1. Printed material:
1/1. Books and articles:
A. Works by Bunting, arranged chronologically.
B. Works about Bunting, arranged chronologically.
C. Standard editions of works of authors closely associated with Bunting, arranged by author.
1/2. Reviews of Bunting's publications, arranged in folders for each publication reviewed.
1/3. Cuttings, ephemera, publicity for publications and recordings, arranged in folders chronologically by year.
2. Manuscripts and papers, arranged in order of accession, with a structured index.
3. Sound recordings.
4. Videos.
5. Photographs.
Active collecting continues.
Durham University Library's Basil Bunting Archive also contains printed material which has been catalogued on the OPAC. These works can be found on the catalogue by a search by shelfmark (all Bunting material having the shelfmark "Bunting"). The
URL for this search is
http://library.dur.ac.uk/search/c?SEARCH=Bunting&SUBMIT=Search.
Draft lists exist of the videos and sound recordings.
Many of the documents in this collection are copies of those held elsewhere.
Guedalla, Roger,
Basil Bunting: a Bibliography of Works and Criticism Norwood, Pa. Norwood Editions, 1973).
Covers items published up to the end of 1971.
Guedalla, Roger, “Basil Bunting: a Bibliography of Works and Criticism”
Poetry Information 19 (Autumn 1978) 73-89.
Descriptions of individual items are much abridged from
those in the 1973 edition but the bibliography is updated to cover publications to May 1978.
Guedalla, Roger, “Books and Pamphlets by or edited by Basil Bunting”,
Paideuma 9 no.1 (Spring 1980) 173-200.
Reprint of the relevant section from Guedalla's 1973
bibliography; not updated for later publications
Wilde, Dana, “Year by Year Bibliography of Basil Bunting”, in
Basil Bunting Man and Poet ed. C.F. Terrell (Orono, National Poetry Foundation, 1981), 357-373.
A
chronological rearrangement of the information on publications by (but not about) Bunting from Guedalla's 1978 listing, not updated.
Nord, Roland, “A Bibliography of Works about Basil Bunting with Extended Commentary”
Basil Bunting Man and Poet pp. 375-427
Caddel, Richard, and Flowers, Anthony,
Basil Bunting a northern life (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1997)
Manuscripts and documentsMOUNTJOY COLLECTIONReference: MSS 1-56
The contents fall into 5 groups: (nos 1-20) manuscripts, typescripts and notebooks by Bunting (henceforth in this list BB) himself; (nos 21-22) translations by others of poems by BB; (nos 23-33) correspondence; (nos 34-54) association manuscripts
(literary manuscripts and typescripts by other authors, in his possession); (nos 55-56) printed miscellanea.
This material was purchased for the Basil Bunting Poetry Archive from the poet's widow in 1988 (accession 1987/88:3) with a most generous donation from English Estates North, and is named the Mountjoy Collection after the company's Durham
site.
MANUSCRIPTS, TYPESCRIPTS, AND NOTEBOOKS BY BBReference: MSS 1-20Folder of 7 poems and translationsReference: MSS 1-7
(The red spring-back folder is now kept separately)
You've come! O how flustered and anxious I've been
Reference: 1
Dates of creation: 1974
Extent: 1p.
(Translation from the Persian of Sa`di)
Carbon typescript, untitled, dated at foot 1974. With ms corrections.
First line as in heading.
Uncollected Poems (1991), p.42.
Hi, tent-boy, get that tent down.
Reference:
Dates of creation: 1949
Extent: 2pp. on 2 leaves.
(Translation from the Persian of Manuchehri)
Carbon typescript, untitled, with ms corrections and date at foot 1949.
First line as in heading.
Uncollected Poems (1991), p.40.
Like a fawn you dodge me, Molly
Reference: 3
Dates of creation: [n.d.]
Extent: 1p.
(Translation from Horace,
Odes, I, xxiii)
Carbon typescript, untitled and undated, with ms correction.
First line as in heading.
Uncollected Poems (1991), p.44.
Ginger, who are you going with?
Reference: 4
Dates of creation: [n.d.]
Extent: 1p.
(Translation from Horace, Odes, I, v)
Carbon typescript, untitled, dated 1969 at foot, with ms variant wordings in margin.
First line as in heading.
Uncollected Poems (1991), p.43.
That filly couldnt carry a rider nor
Reference: 5
Dates of creation: [n.d.]
Extent: 1p.
(Translation from Horace,
Odes, II, v)
Carbon typescript, untitled and undated.
First line as in heading.
Uncollected Poems (1991), p.45.
All the cants they peddle
Reference: 6
Dates of creation: 1969
Extent: 1p.
Carbon typescript, untitled, dated at foot 1969.
First line as in heading.
Five alternatives for 'foolhardy' (last line) typed at lower right.
Collected Poems (1978), p.21
Stones trip Coquet burn
Reference: 7
Dates of creation: 1970
Extent: 1p.
Carbon typescript, untitled, dated at foot 1970.
First line as in heading.
Collected Poems (1978), p.122
The Pious CatReference: 8Dates of creation: 1937-1977
Extent: i, 1-10pp. on 11 leaves.
(Translation from the Persian of Obaid-e Zakani)
Autograph; signed and dated (p.10) 1937-77.
Contents:
p.1. Title-page - “The Pious Cat by Obaid-e Zakani (and Basil Bunting) - with pictures by
Sima-Maria” (The intended illustrations by Bunting's daughter Maria [born 1950] are not in fact included in the manuscript.)
1-9. Text.
10. Note on Obaid-e Zakani.
The first published edition of BB's translation (Obaid-e Zakani,
The Pious Cat, London, Rota, 1986) includes a facsimile reproduction of this ms, together with a printed version (taken from Bunting's typescript, not in the Archive) in which the date is given as 1939-77 and there are
some textual variants. The latter version is reprinted in
Uncollected Poems (1991), pp.[49]-57.
Such syllables flicker out of grass:
Reference: 9-10
Dates of creation: [n.d.]
Extent: 1p.
Typeset, untitled and undated.
2 copies First line as in heading.
These are two of six copies of a worksheet draft of the poem printed by BB on his own Adana press (information from Professor Peter Quartermain, to whom BB sent another of
the six on 9 April 1973)
Uncollected Poems (1991), p.22
You, with my enemy, strolling down my street
Reference: 11
Dates of creation: 1949
Extent: 1p. (on leaf from a lined, punched, loose-leaf notebook)
(Translation from the Persian of Manuchehri)
Autograph, dated at foot 1949.
Untitled. First line as in heading above:
Uncollected Poems (1991), p.38.
Note on Briggflatts
Reference: 12
Dates of creation: [n.d.]
Extent: 2pp. on 2 leaves.
Typescript, untitled and undated, with autograph corrections.
Text begins ' Briggflatts is a poem: it needs no explanation.' and ends 'Let the incidents and images take care of themselves.'
Basil Bunting,
A Note on Briggflatts (Durham, Basil Bunting Poetry Archive, 1989)
The Use of Poetry
Reference: 13
Dates of creation: 1970
Extent: 9pp. on 9 leaves.
Transcript of a lecture given by BB to honours English students at the University of British Columbia in 1970, with prefatory background note by Peter Quartermain, mentioning BB's death in 1985.
Photocopied typescript, with ms
corrections.
Writing 12 (Summer 1985) 36-43 and in Agenda 24 no. 4/25 no. 1 (Winter/Spring 1987) 5- 12.
The Written Record
Reference: 14
Dates of creation: ca. 1932-1935
Extent: 10, [1]pp. on 11 leaves.
Typescript, untitled and undated, with ms corrections.
Text begins: 'The written record, transcribed and handed down for centuries in the same form, grows into a ponderous tradition and leads to the illusion of permanence, ... even permanent
growth.' Text ends (p.10): 'Perhaps this paper will suggest that the critical aspects of such thought are as dry as the paper upon which it breeds.' Footnotes on final leaf.
Written by “Roger Kaigh” (pseudonym of Irving Kaplan, a friend of Louis
Zukofsky). This essay was published in Basil Bunting, Three essays (Durham: BBPA, 1994) where it was ascribed to BB, but in 1995 it was identified by Andrew Crozier as the work of Kaplan.
Materials towards an unpublished anthology of poetryReference: 15-1615 [n.d.]
Text of the anthology, with notes of additional material intended for inclusion.
Carbon typescript, with some ms notes on missing items.
p.1: Contents list in author order.
p.4: 'Complete list of what is missing'.
p.5: 'You wanted more:' - list of further possible additions.
p.6-109: Text. The arrangement is in 9 sections: 1, Core. 2, The Growing Stem. 3, The English Sound. 4, Diction. 5, Tools and Wrappings. 6, Sleight. 7, Nonsense and Comic. 8, Narrative. 9, Syntax.
A contents list is provided at the start of each section.
Formerly in a yellow envelope file (now kept separately) with printed label Yeats International Summer School, Sligo, Ireland, and, in ms, Mr. Basil Bunting.
109pp. on 109 leaves.
Reference: 16
Dates of creation:
Extent: 104 leaves
Photocopies of poems intended for inclusion in the anthology.
In envelope with inscription 'Dr Thornton' on front and ms note 'skiel a wooden water vessel' on back.
Looseleaf memorandum book of working notes
Reference: 17
Dates of creation: [n.d.]
Extent: Printed flyleaf foliated i, and 19 leaves of punched, lined paper, foliated 1-19 (ff. 15-19 blank).
Autograph. Flyleaf (f.i) has printed title Hytone Loose Leaf Memorandum Book ..., and autograph inscription of BB's name and [California] address, 839a Embarcadero del Norte, Isla Vista, Goleta; this is crossed out, and his English address,
Shadingfield, Wylam, Northumberland, is written below.
Contents: working notes of words, phrases, lines for poems, quotations, etc. Begins (f.1) 'Azalea flame (leaping with fire)'. Ends (f.14) 'sins both of thought and deed. Ibsen. When we dead wake'.
Last working notebook
Reference: 18
Dates of creation: [n.d.]
Extent: Ringbound notebook in plastic wallet (text on ff.1-24, 26-27 only; rest of volume blank).
Autograph.
Contents: words, phrases, lines for poems, quotations etc. Begins (f.1) ' haimasia drystone wall - Odessey [sic]'. ends (f.27) 'bat wing, owl song,' Begun c.1970 (information from Professor Peter Quartermain, 1990).
Transcriptions of Persian poetryReference: 19-20
Autograph.
2 stiff-bound notebooks, blue covers with maroon spines.
19 [n.d.]
Poems from the
Divan of Hakim Abu al-Namj Ahmad, known as Manuchihri Damghani or Manuchehri,copied from Kazimirski's edition, Paris, 1886.
Pages with text numbered 1-118. Persian text on even numbered pages; annotations (sources
described on title-page) on odd-numbered pages. Rest of notebook blank, except for index at end.
Reference: 20Dates of creation:
Pages with text numbered 1-38. Persian text on even- numbered pages, annotations on odd-numbered pages. Rest of notebook blank, except for index at end.
pp.1-30: Poems from the Divan-i Shams-i Tabriz,
by Jalal al-Din Rumi, copied from R.A. Nicholson's selection, Cambridge, 1898
31-38: Kitab-i Mush va Gurbah, by `Ubaid-i Zakani.
BB's translation of this poem (see MS. 8) was published as Obaid-e Zakani, The Pious Cat (London, Rota, 1986).
TRANSLATIONS BY OTHERS OF POEMS BY BBReference: 21-22Ode für helen egli:
Reference: 21
Dates of creation: 1964
Extent: 2pp.
German translation by Rainer M. Gerhardt of Ode 5 from Bunting's
First Book of Odes Typescript.
Gerhardt's translation was published in Fragmente: International Revue Für Moderne Dichtung 1. Heft (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1951), p.7. In this
typescript, the translation appears on p.1 with, on p.2, a note beginning 'copy made by Anselm Hollo from “fragmente”' giving details of the publication. At the foot of p.2 there is a ms inscription 'For Basil Bunting - with all good wishes, Anselm
hollo [sic]. 10.XII.64'.
First line of translation: 'leere ungeheuere tage gebaut in öder memory scheinen ein kerker für'. (First line of original: 'Empty vast days built in the waste memory seems a jail for'.)
La Ruta de Orotava:Reference: 22Dates of creation: 1979
Extent: 8pp. on 8 leaves.
Spanish translation of and commentary on Bunting's poem
“The Orotava road” by André Sánchez Robayna.
Duplicated typescript, dated (p.6) La Laguna [Tenerife], 17 Nov. 1979.
Contents:
pp.1-6. Commentary entitled 'Ruta, textura (lectura de
“La Ruta de Orotava” de Basil Bunting)'.
p.7. The poem in the original English. (First line 'Four white heifers with sprawling hooves')
p.8. Spanish translation of the poem. (First line 'Cuatro terneras blancas derrengadas')
CORRESPONDENCEReference: 23-33COX, KennethReference: 23-24
(full name: Arthur Kenneth)
Reference: 23
Dates of creation: 1966
Extent: 2pp.
BB (Shadingfield, Wylam, Northumberland) to C, 10 March 1966.
Carbon typescript.
Comments on the draft on an article C has written about BB and suggests that Agenda might publish it. (Cox's
“The Aesthetic of Basil Bunting” was published in Agenda v.4 nos 5/6, Autumn 1966, pp.20-28)
24 1966
C (73 Harrington Gardens, London S.W.7) to BB, 26 March 1966 Typescript, signed Arthur Cox, in reply to the letter above.
2pp.
FIGGIS, Sean and MCALLISTER, Andy
Reference: 25
Dates of creation: 1984
Extent: 1 p.
F and M (51 St Hilda St, Hull) to BB, 19 Dec. 1984.
Typescript, signed.
About the writers' recent interview with BB, eventually published in Bête Noire no. 2/3 (1987) 22-50.
MAKIN, Peter J.
Reference: 26
Dates of creation: 1984
Extent: 1 p.
M (Nishigawara 2-1-6, Ibaraki-shi, Osaka 567, Japan) to BB, 23 Nov. 1984
Typescript, signed, with ms postscript.
About an article M has written on “Bunting's Inferno”, etc.
ZUKOFSKY, LouisReference: 27-3327 1962
Z (160 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, N.Y.) to BB, 'Thanksgiving (?) [sic] Eve'. Postmark 21 Nov. 1962.
Autograph, signed. Aerogramme.
About Z's dealings with the Humanities Research Center, University of Texas; he suggests that BB might
sell his manuscripts and/or correspondence to the Center.
28 1965
Z (c/o Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) to BB, 27 Dec. 1965.
Autograph, signed Louis & Celia. Aerogramme.
About progress with Z's Catullus.
29 1966
Z (c/o Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) to BB, 17 Jan. 1966.
Autograph, signed Louis & Celia. Postcard.
About progress with Z's Carmen 64, B's Loquitur etc.
30 1966
Z (77 Seventh Ave., New York) to BB, 28 Feb. 1966.
Autograph, signed. Aerogramme.
About BB's Loquitur, the Ezra Pound 80th birthday issue of Agenda, Z's A, etc.
31 1966
Z (77 Seventh Ave., New York) to BB, 19 March 1966.
Autograph, signed. Aerogramme.
About Z's Catullus, the doubtful delights of poetry-reading tours, etc.
32 1966
Z (77 Seventh Ave., New York) to BB, 4 April 1966.
Autograph, signed. Aerogramme.
About the dedication of Z's Catullus, contracts with publishers, BB's Briggflatts and BB's
forthcoming trip to Buffalo.
33 1962
Z (77 Seventh Ave., New York) to BB, 4 June 1966
Autograph, signed. Aerogramme.
About BB's trip to Buffalo, Z's Catullus, and the BB issue of Agenda.
ASSOCIATION MANUSCRIPTSReference: 34-54
(literary mss and typescripts by other authors, in BB's possession)
BRIDSON, D.G.: The Quest of Gilgamesh: A Dramatic Poem
Reference: 34
Dates of creation: 1954
Extent: i-ii, 1-59, [1]pp. on 31 leaves.
Duplicated typescript of 1954 broadcast.
Broadcast on the BBC Third Programme, 29 Nov. 1954 (dates and times of rehearsals, recording and transmission are listed on p.i).
Bridson (1910-80) was featured beside BB in Pound's Active
Anthology (1933). As a BBC Third Programme producer, Bridson was responsible for two broadcasts by BB ca 1963-64 (information from Denis Goacher).
EVANS, Robert Allison: PoemsReference: 35Dates of creation: [n.d.]
Extent: 7pp. on 7 leaves.
Carbon typescript, with ms corrections.
Contents:
p.1. Heading: 'From “Below the Grass Roots” by Robert Allison Evans'
“Pawns of Draughtsmen” (First line:
'We are ponderables who adorn')
p.2. “The Start” (First line: 'Today starts butter-thin on Hemlock Ridge,')
“Five O'Clock Whistle” (First line: 'W-a-u-g-h-h-h-h! one long, we work today')
p.3. Heading: 'From “Seven O'Clock” '
'....... no work, in that case' (First line: 'I think I'll give the woman one and then')
“Pocono Runways” (First line: 'Me and
Krakosky went huntin today')
p.4. Heading: 'From “Slow Ride” '
[Untitled poem]. (First line: 'Add up his wages')
“Tools of Flesh” (First line: 'My sweetheart's a mule in the mines')
p.5. Heading: 'From “Unto the Fourth Generation” '
“Epilogue” (First line: 'Load an extra, load an extra')
p.6. Heading: 'From “The Patch” '
[Untitled poem]. (First line: 'It was time to air the bed-clothes,')
Heading: 'From “Johny Griffith-Fire-Boss” '
[Untitled
poem]. (First line: 'The day')
p.7. [Continuation from p.6 or ? untitled poem]. (First line: 'Who likes a good, old-time Welsh hymn')
NIEDECKER, Lorine: Will You Write Me a Christmas Poem?
Reference: 36
Dates of creation:
Extent: 1 folded leaf, paginated 1-4 (p.4 blank).
Carbon typescript, undated.
Title (p.2): “Will You Write me a Christmas Poem?”
First line: 'Will I'
With ms correction and clarifications of the typing by Louis Zukofsky, typed note by him on p.1
'POEM/by/LORRINE' (surplus r deleted in ink), and ms note by him at foot 'Written at Lorine's umbilical'.
with some differences of text, in
From This Condensery: The Complete Writing of Lorine Niedecker ed. R.J. Berthoff (East Haven, Conn., Jargon Society, 1985), pp.13-15.
POUND, Ezra: Homage to Sextus Propertius - Italian translation [by Massimo Bacigalupo]
Reference: 37
Dates of creation: [n.d.]
Extent: 1p.
Part only.
Galley proof of section VI of the poem (with the end of V and beginning of VII; begins 'Per quanto Callimacho ne abbia fatto senza', ends 'Me felice, notte, notte piena di fulgore;'). With pencil corrections and, at head,
typescript note from the translator 'My translation of Propertius, recently published. In case you may like to see how “When, when, and whenever ...” comes out in the other language.'
The published edition appeared as Ezra Pound,
Omaggio a Sesto Properzio, a cura di Massimo Bacigalupo (Genoa, Edizioni S. Marco dei Giustiniani, 1984.
ZUKOFSKY, Louis: "A" - 8
Reference: 38
Dates of creation: [n.d.]
Extent: 4pp. on 4 leaves.
The beginning only (1978 ed., pp.43-49)
Carbon typescript, undated.
Pencil number O at foot of p.1, 3 at foot of p.2, 2 at foot of both p.3 and p.4
Title on p.1: "A"/8
First line (p.2): 'And of labor'
Last line (p.4): 'May of
the Freed of all the Earth!'
Printed: Cf.
"A" (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1978), pp.43-49.
Printed version differs.
ZUKOFSKY, Louis: "A" - 8
Reference: 39
Dates of creation: [n.d.]
Extent: 1 p.
Part only (1978 ed. pp.48-49)
Carbon typescript, undated, with author's name and address (111 East 36 St. New York) at foot, and with autograph clarifications of the typing.
Title at head: '“MARCH COMRADES”/(Words for a workers' chorus,
from “'A' - 8” ),' crossed out in ink, with autograph note 'Title for new masses - didn't dare use Internationale for fear of blasphemy'.
5 stanzas.
First line: 'Workers and
farmers unite'
Last line: 'May of the Freed of All the Earth!'
Printed: Cf.
"A" (Berkeley, 1978), pp.48-49. The printed version omits the first stanza of the typescript (next stanza of both begins 'Railways and highways have tied') and has other textual differences.
ZUKOFSKY, Louis: "A" - 8
Reference: 40
Dates of creation: [n.d.]
Extent: i, 7-41, [1]pp.
Part only (1978 ed. pp.52-103)
Carbon typescript, undated. First leaf is blank, final leaf is duplicated pro forma headed 'Date Report Sheet, Index of American Design' (for which Zukofsky worked in the 1930's), with autograph inscription:
'Not part of "A" - Part of my job & we have to print, too. L.'
Untitled.
First line (p.7): 'Heat, not substance. Simmer, not wraith.'
Last line (p.41): 'Singing Bach as they dug'
Printed: Cf.
"A" (Berkeley, 1978), pp.52-103. Printed version differs.
ZUKOFSKY, Louis: "A" - 9. First half.Reference: 41Dates of creation: Extent: 44 leaves in manilla folder. Paginated i-iii, 1-41.
Duplicated typescript [in effect Zukofsky's first published book].
Contents:
Folder has typed title 'FIRST HALF OF “A” - 9 by Louis Zukofsky'
p.i. Title: 'FIRST HALF OF “A” - 9/by/Louis Zukofsky/New York/1940'
p.ii. 'Copyright 1940 by Louis Zukofsky/First edition,/limited to 55 autographed copies,/numbers 1 to 15 for presentation/No.6'. Inscribed 'Louis Zukofsky to Basil Bunting'.
p.iii. Contents Table
p.1. Foreword, dated Nov. 24/39
p.2-36. Source material (from Guido Cavalcanti in the original Italian, Karl Marx, Stanley Allen's Electrons and Waves (1932), and translations of Cavalcanti by Ezra Pound, Jerry Reisman and Zukofsky himself),
employed in the composition of "A" - 9. First half.
p.37. Explanation of the poem's form
p.38-39. "A" 9. First half.
First line: 'An impulse to action sings of a semblance'
p.40-41. 'First Half of "A" - 9/Restatement' in prose
A3 in the checklist of books and pamphlets by Zukofsky included in Marcella Booth,
A Catalogue of the Louis Zukofsky Manuscript Collection, Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin (Austin,
1975). Booth also lists several manuscript drafts for the compilation (B3 in her catalogue) and says of it 'This volume was compiled at the request of friends who wished to see the extracurricular activity that went into the making of a poem'.
Printed: Cf.
"A" (Berkeley, 1978). Text on pp.38-39 of this typescript appears on pp.106-108 of the 1978 ed., and is identical except that printed version has 'though' for typescript's 'tho'. The rest of the material in this
typescript appears (1988) to be uncollected.
ZUKOFSKY, Louis: "A" - 9. Second half
Reference: 42
Dates of creation: [n.d.]
Extent: 2pp. on 2 leaves.
Carbon typescript, undated, with Zukofsky's name and address (30 Willow St. B'klyn 2, N.Y.) at head.
Title (p.1): '"A" - 9/(Second half)'
First line (p.1): 'An eye to action sees love bear the semblance'
Printed:
"A" (Berkeley, 1978), pp.108-111. Printed version is identical except for one change of punctuation.
ZUKOFSKY, Louis: Arise, Arise
Reference: 43
Dates of creation: [n.d.]
Extent: 95 leaves (including final blank), paginated I-III, 1-24, 24 (2), 25-78, 78 (2), 78 (3), 79-88, [1].
Complete carbon typescript, undated.
p.I: title-page - 'ARISE, ARISE/a play/by Louis Zukofsky'; p.II-III, list of characters and directions on staging and costumes.
Two acts.
Printed: First edition New York, Grossman, 1973.
ZUKOFSKY, Louis: Further than the wash-stand
Reference: 44
Dates of creation: 1935
Extent: 1 p.
Carbon typescript, with, at head, author's name and address (149 East 37 St. N.Y.), and at foot date, 1/20/35, and author's signature.
Untitled. First line: as in heading above.
Printed: Cf. Louis Zukofsky,
All The collected short poems 1923-1964 (New York, Norton, 1971), pp.72-73. Printed version has title '“Further than” -', otherwise identical to typescript
ZUKOFSKY, Louis: “The Immediate Aim”
Reference: 45
Dates of creation: 1934
Extent: 1 bifolium, paginated 1- 4.
Pencil draft, signed by the author and dated Mar 7/34 in ink at the end. (Text ends on p.3; pencil scribbles, crossed through, on final page.)
Title at head: ' “The immediate aim” '
First line: 'Other
than propaganda -'
Printed: Cf. Louis Zukofsky,
All the collected short poems 1923-1964 (New York, 1971), pp.61-63. Printed version identical to pencil draft.
ZUKOFSKY, Louis: “Mantis” & “Mantis”, An Interpretation.Reference: 46-49
2 drafts
Printed: Cf. Louis Zukofsky,
All the collected short poems 1923-1964 (New York, 1971), pp.73-80. Both drafts, as corrected, are identical to the printed version, except for one change in spacing.
46 1934
“Mantis” : carbon typescript, with, at foot, author's name and address (19, altered in ms to 149, East 37 St New York) and date, Oct 27/34.
Title at head: '55 / “Mantis”'
First line: 'Mantis! praying mantis!
since your wings' leaves'
1 p.
Size: 279 x 215 mm.
47 1934
“Mantis”, An Interpretation: carbon copy typescript, with author's name and address (as above, including alteration) and date, Nov. 4/34, at end, and with autograph corrections.
Title at head: '“Mantis”, An
Interpretation or Nomina sunt consequentia rerum, names are sequent to the things named'
First two lines: 'Mantis! praying mantis! since your wings' leaves/Incipit Vita Nova'
5pp. on 5 leaves.
Size: 280 x 216 mm. (foot of p.1 torn off).
48 1934
“Mantis” : carbon typescript, with, at foot, author's name and address (19, altered in ms to 149, East 37 St New York, further altered in ms to 111 East 36 Street, New York) and date (crossed through), Oct
27/34.
Title and first line as in above draft (but with '55' crossed through).
1 p.
Size: 279 x 214 mm.
49 1934
“
“Mantis”, An Interpretation”: carbon typescript, dated at end November 4, 1934/New York, with, below, author's/autograph signature and name and address (111 E. 36 St. New York), and with autograph
corrections.
Title and first lines as in above draft.
5pp. on 5 leaves.
Size: 279 x 216 mm.
ZUKOFSKY, Louis: “Modern Times”
Reference: 50
Dates of creation: 1936
Extent: i, 1-12, [1]pp. on 14 leaves (first and final leaves blank).
Article on the Charlie Chaplin film of that title.
Carbon typescript, with, at end, Z's name and address (111 East 36 St. NYC) and date 'Mar. 18/36', and with autograph corrections.
Title (p.1): ' “Modern
Times” '
Printed: Cf.
Prepositions: the Collected Critical Essays of Louis Zukofsky, expanded ed.(Berkeley, University of California Press, 1981), pp.57-64. Published version differs radically.
ZUKOFSKY, Louis: Thanks to the Dictionary
Reference: 51
Dates of creation: [n.d.]
Extent: i, 1-16, [1]pp. on 18 leaves (final leaf blank).
Part only
Carbon typescript, undated, with autograph title-page bearing author's name and address (149 East 37 Street, New York), and author's signature at end of text.
Title (pp.i, 1): 'Parts of a novel'
Text begins (p.1): 'There was
a horse, its face bauson, and they used its back as a batule'
Text ends (p.16): 'She did not receive him, but she had become numberless'
Theme: David, the Old Testament king.
Draft of parts of the novel Thanks to
the Dictionary (first published, together with Ferdinand and two short stories, in volume with covering title It was, Kyoto, Japan, Origin Press, 1961, pp.99-132). In the
published version the sections of text have been radically re-ordered; there are also minor textual changes and alterations to punctuation, capitalisation, paragraphing and use of italics. The sections of typescript correspond to the published text
as follows: typescript p.1-2, Origin Press ed. p.129-131; typescript p.3-4, Origin Press ed. p.111-112; typescript p.5-13, Origin Press ed. p.122-129; typescript p.14-16, Origin Press ed. p.114-116
ZUKOFSKY, Louis: “Specifically a writer of music”
Reference: 52
Dates of creation: [n.d.]
Extent: 4pp. on 4 leaves.
Carbon typescript, undated, with autograph corrections.
Text begins: ' “Specifically a writer of music.” The composite of notes proceeded with assumed qualities in a definite proportion.'
Printed: Cf. Louis Zukofsky,
All the collected short poems 1923-1964 (New York, 1971), pp.69-71. Printed version is almost identical to typescript except for punctuation and capitalisation.
ZUKOFSKY, Louis: Trio for Workers (later “A madrigal for 3 voices” )
Reference: 53
Dates of creation: 1935
Extent: 1 p.
Carbon typescript, with, at head, author's name and address (149 East 37th Street New York City), dated at foot Feb. 27- 8, 1935.
Title at head: 'Trio for Workers:/(a madrigal) Unaccompanied.'
First line: 'Hail the tree's meadow'
Printed: Cf. Louis Zukofsky,
All the collected short poems 1923-1964 (New York, 1971), p.101. Printed version is entitled “A madrigal for 3 voices”, otherwise identical to typescript.
ZUKOFSKY, Louis ed.: A Workers AnthologyReference: 54Dates of creation: [n.d.]
Extent: i-iii, 1-54, [1]pp. on 58 leaves (final leaf blank) in manilla folder.
Carbon typescript, with autograph corrections and directions for layout in printing.
Contents
p.i. Title-page: 'A WORKERS ANTHOLOGY/Edited by/Louis Zukofsky'
p.ii. Second carbon of title-page
p.iii. Editor's preface, dated New York, March 8 1935, with author's signature and name and address (111 E. 36 St. N.Y.C.). Pref. begins 'This anthology illustrates the presence of revolutionary struggle and idea in some of the
best poetry of 2000 years.'
pp.1-54. Text of anthology. Arrangement is chronological.
Two final poems are translated by Zukofsky.
William Carlos Williams helped to compile the anthology (information from Professor Peter Quartermain, 1990). Unpublished in 1988.
PRINTED MISCELLANEAReference: 55-56CLARE, John: Anything quiet and melancholy suits me
Reference: 55
Dates of creation: 1986
Extent: 1 p.
Extract, beginning as in heading above, 'from a letter sold at Christie's, 7-ii-1986', overprinted on a corn-stook ornament and the poet's name. At foot 'Easter 1986 S [dolphin and anchor ornament] P'. [Hand-printed by Peter Quartermain at the
Slug Press, Vancouver, 1986.]
ZUKOFSKY, Louis: Gamut: 90 Trees
Reference: 56
Dates of creation: 1984
Extent: [2] p.
Single sheet.
Privately printed [by Peter Quartermain at the Slug Press, Vancouver], 1984, 'in a special limited printing to The Friends of Louis Zukofsky to mark the poet's 80th birthday, January 23 1984'
BB TO MARGARET DE SILVERReference: 57-65Dates of creation: 1948-1953
9 typescript letters, signed,, from BB to Margaret De Silver, his patroness and the dedicatee of his first book,
Redimiculum Matellarum.
The letters begin after a hiatus in BB's relationship with De Silver, and give detailed reports on his current occupations and ambitions, together with a retrospective account of his work during the Second World War and his activities in the
years since the publication of
Redimiculum. The burden of the correspondence concerns BB's work as a journalist in Teheran, and his difficulties in finding employment in England or America after his expulsion from Iran in 1951. The letters include
impressions of Iran and of the England to which he returned, and comments on events in his personal life including his marriage to his second wife Sima Alladallian, his children, literary friends and acquaintances, poems he is writing, publication
prospects, etc. BB presents his qualifications for employment in considerable detail, and asks De Silver for help in finding openings in America.
Purchased in 1989 (together with a copy of BB's printed
Curriculum Vitae [1951?], pressmark Bunting A. 1951.4) with a grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, from James S. Jaffe Rare Books, Haverford, Pennsylvania (accession 1988/89:8).
57 1948 Aug. 28
From British Embassy, Teheran
His work for the Foreign Office: relationship to Sima Alladallian: prospects of writing more poems and a book on Isfahan. Reference to Harry, Burnie and Anne [Anne De Silver]
2pp. on 2 leaves
58 1949 Sept. 2
From c/o The Teheran Club, Teheran
Retrospect on the past decade; marriage to Sima; work as Times correspondent in Teheran; 'a bloke in Texas' [Dallam Flynn] has undertaken to edit his poems for publication by
[James] Laughlin of New Directions ; [the projected publication in New Directions did not materialise, but Flynn brought out his edition as Poems 1950
(Galveston, Cleaners' Press, [1950])]. Mentions Dolfy Dehn, [Louis] Zukofsky, Dorothy and Ezra Pound, Archie Roosevelt, [Karl] Drerup, Carlos Williams, Harry, Burnie, and Anne [Anne De Silver].
3pp. on 2 leaves
59 1950 Jan. 3
From c/o The Teheran Club, Teheran
Impressions of Iran; birth of his daughter Sima-Maria; prospect his job with the Times will cease; alternative employment possibilities; summary of his qualifications,
experience and ambitions; has finished 'two or three translations of Persian poems which are not bad'; mentions [Louis] Zukofsky, the Drerups, his daughter Bourtai, Harry, Burnie and Anne [Anne De Silver].
3pp. on 3 leaves
60 1951 April 27
From Lido di Camaiore, via XXV Luglio 26, Lucca
Family news; employment prospects. Mentions Ezra Pound, Kenneth Patchen, his children by both marriages (Sima-Maria, Roudaba, Rustam, Bourtai) and first wife Marian, Louis Zukofsky.
1p.
61 1951 June 30
From 242 Newburn Road, Throckley, Northumberland
Return to England from Italy; poor employment prospects; has finished “The Spoils” ; impressions of England; mentions Otto and Louise Theis, his daughter
Sima-Maria and wife Sima, his cousin Malcolm.
2pp. on 1 leaf
62 1952 Oct. 1
From 242 Newburn Road, Throckley, Northumberland
Causes and consequences of his expulsion from Iran; his poverty and desperate need for employment; birth of another child (his son Tom) imminent; asks for De Silver's help in finding an opening
in America, sets out his qualifications in detail, and mentions that he will enclose copies of his printed Curriculum vitae [one copy was purchased with these letters, pressmark Bunting A.1951.4.]
3pp. on 3 leaves
63 1953 April 9
From 242 Newburn Road, Throckley, Northumberland
Poverty and employment problems; England hide-bound by bureaucracy; wishes that some newspaper 'would send me to do what I know myself, and am known, to do well: describe and interpret the
politics of some turbulent country'; comment on “The Spoils”.
3pp. on 3 leaves
64 1953 May 28
From 242 Newburn Road, Throckley, Northumberland
Commentary on the shortcomings of American and British diplomacy in the Middle East, and the deficiencies of western reporting, particularly by the Times and
Economist. Mentions Robert Payne.
3pp. on 3 leaves
65 1953 Sept. 27
From 242 Newburn Road, Throckley, Northumberland
Acute poverty; his mother's ability to help also exhausted; still can't find an opening as a correspondent, nor any other employment; lack of capital prevents him from trying to start in the
north of England a badly-needed 'paper of the Economist or New Statesman kind to deal with politics from the very neglected northern point of view and remind the north that literature etc. exist'. Mentions Zukofsky and Pound.
4pp. on 4 leaves
BB AT LEIGHTON PARK SCHOOL, READINGReference: 66Dates of creation: [n.d.]
Photocopy of Leighton Park School's file (no. 369) on BB, who was a pupil there 1916-18. Photocopied with the School's permission, from the original in its possession (accession 1988/89:11)
66/1 [n.d.]
BB's school record card.
1 sheet
66/2 30 May 1916
Frederick Andrews, Headmaster of Ackworth School, Pontefract, which BB had previously attended, to Charles [Evans], Headmaster of Leighton Park.
Gives assessment of BB at Ackworth.
1 sheet
66/3 3 June 1916
[Evans] to BB's father, Dr. T.L. Bunting.
Offers to reserve a place for BB at Leighton Park in Sept.
1 sheet
66/4-6 6 June 1916
BB's father to Evans (66/4), enclosing an application form and medical report (66/5-6) for admission of BB to Leighton Park in Sept. 1916.
3 sheets
66/7 12 June 1916
[Evans] to BB's father.
Replies to 66/4 and advises on appropriate pocket money for BB.
1 sheet.
66/8 22 Sept. 1916
Mary F. Hartley, BB's Latin teacher at Ackworth School, to Evans.
Describes BB's lack of prowess at Latin while at Ackworth
2 sheets
66/9 24 Oct. 1916
BB's father to Evans.
Asks about the advisability of BB's mother visiting him at Leighton Park, and quotes from BB's letters home about his unhappiness there.
1 sheet
66/10 24 Oct. 1916
[Evans] to BB's father.
Gives an account of how he has handled an outburst from BB about his unhappiness at the school, and encloses a document on the subject (66/11), with which BB has presented him.
1 sheet
66/11 [Oct. 1916]
Memorandum from BB to the Headmaster of Leighton Park, setting out the causes of his unhappiness at the school ('people with the Southern manners are, for me, utterly “impossible” & hateful') and the reasons he should be allowed to leave at
once.
2 sheets
66/12 26 Oct. 1916
BB's father to Evans.
Reply to 66/10, commenting on his son's tendency to hysteria.
2 sheets
66/13 30 Oct. [1916?]
[Evans] to BB's father.
Advises that BB's mother should not be deterred from visiting him at the school by fears of unsettling him.
1 sheet
66/14 [1916?]
Note [?to Evans] signed E.E. U[nwin, a master at the school] asking if a school team can be allowed to go to Oxford without staff escort since he has a competing commitment and the team will include prefects.
1 sheet
66/15 [1916?]
Notes in Evans's hand on some 'juvenile escapade' by BB (?related to 66/14); 'glad he is safe - there satisfaction ends'.
1 sheet
66/16 [1916?]
List of 'Periods with R.C. Bunting' 5 Oct. - 9 Dec. [1916?], with address '8 Christchurch Gardens Reading' and note in another hand 'Boys Record'.
1 sheet
66/17 [1917]
Notes in Evans's hand on BB's progress at Leighton Park, Oct. 1916 - Dec. 1917.
1 sheet
66/18 16 Feb. 1918
H.J. Edwards, Peterhouse, Cambridge, to [Evans].
Explains the Peterhouse examiners' reasons for not awarding a scholarship to BB - 'It was felt that there was a possibility of brilliance in him, but that his work was as yet too uneven'.
1 sheet
66/19 [n.d.]
Typescript notes on BB's career at Leighton Park, based on and quoting (not always quite accurately) from the preceding items in the file.
2 sheets
66/20 1916
The Leightonian, Dec. 1916, pp.87-88, containing a poem “Keep Troth” by BB.
66/21 1916-1920
Extracts from
The Leightonian containing other references to BB (Dec. 1916 pp.74, 94-95, 97; April 1917 pp.124, 126; Dec. 1917 pp.178-179, 190; April 1918 p.195; Dec. 1918 p.254; July 1919 p.42; July 1920 p.157; Dec. 1927 p.280.
12 sheets
66/22 13 Nov. 1916
Paper by BB on 'The Relation of the State and Individual Liberty and Law', read to the Leighton Park Senior Essay Society.
7 sheets
66/23 12 Nov. 1917
Paper by BB on 'A Revival of a Forgotten Art: A Romantic Allegory', read to the Leighton Park Senior Essay Society.
14 sheets
66/24 20 April 1977
Dale Reagan, Edinburgh to the Headmaster of Leighton Park School.
Seeks information for his Ph.D. thesis on BB
1 sheet
66/25 9 May 1977
W.H. Spray, Headmaster of Leighton Park School, to Dale Reagan.
Reply to 66/24; with on verso notes on BB by the School Librarian, compiled from the preceding items in the file
1 sheet
BB TO EZRA POUND'S DAUGHTERReference: 67-68
(accession 1989/90:3)
67 25 Sept. 1989
Mary de Rachewiltz [daughter of Ezra Pound] to Richard Caddel, Durham University Library].
Autograph, signed.
Presents to the D.U.L. Basil Bunting Poetry Archive her first letter from BB (MS 68) and explains the background to it.
2pp.
68 21 March 1947
BB, 242 Newburn Rd, Throckley, Northumberland to Mary Baratti [later de Rachewiltz]
Autograph, signed.
Comments on his impending return to Teheran to work for the Foreign Office and on a recent note he has had from Ezra Pound.
2pp. on 2 leaves
BB TO DONALD DAVIEReference: 69-70
Photocopies of two typescript letters, signed (originals in Essex University Library) from BB, Shadingfield, Wylam, Northumberland to Donald Davie.
Presented by the Librarian of the University of Essex (accession 1987/88:6)
69 1975 Sept. 25
Comments on D's book
Pound (London, Fontana, 1975), particularly passages in it concerning BB himself and Briggflatts. Challenges D's proposition that 'the excuse for poetry and the reason for writing it is
the pleasure it gives' and offers his own view of the matter.
2 sheets
70 1975 Oct. 9
Comments on the sense in which he may be considered a Christian and a Quaker, and
Briggflatts a Quaker poem, in response to D's reply (not present) to the preceding item.
2 sheets
BB TO GORDON BROWNReference: 71-72
Two letters signed from BB, Shadingfield, Wylam, Northumberland, to Gordon Brown.
Presented by Gordon Brown (accessions 1988/89:12 and 1989/90:6)
71 1972 Sept. 7
Typescript, signed.
Reply to invitation to read at 'your Benedict Biscop festival'. 'In this case I'm not concerned with a fee'.
1p.
72 1967 [i.e. 1976] July 14
Autograph.
Thanks for 'the useful Beowulf'. Publication of his Skipsey selections. His U.S.A. tour. BB has written '1967' for '1976' in dating the letter
1p. (72/1), with envelope (72/2)
BB ON DAVID JONES73 14 February 1977
Photocopy of autograph letter from BB, Shadingfield, Wylam, Northumberland, to Kelvin Corcoran.
About his acquaintance with the artist and poet David Jones (1895-1974), the possibility (which he denies) that either influenced the other's
work, their respective religious beliefs, his assessment of Jones' Anathemata. Also comments on the work of Hugh MacDiarmid.
2 sheets
Presented by Kelvin Corcoran (accession 1988/89:16)
BB TO DIANA COLLECOTTReference: 74-75
Two typed letters signed.
Presented by Dr. Diana Collecott, School of English, University of Durham (accession 1988/89:18)
74 1978 Nov. 20
From 107 Stridingedge, Blackfell, Washington [Co. Durham]. To Diana Surman [later Collecott].
Concerning the Fourth International Ezra Pound Conference in Britain convened at Durham University, March 1979, which BB attended as a special
guest. Mentions his health, Jacques Darras, Hugh Kenner, Dennis Goacher, BBC programme on Joseph Skipsey, deaths of Hugh MacDiarmid and Tibor Serly, breaking of last links with the literary and artistic world of the 1920's, his opinion of the town
where he is living - 'like a tomb in a very bad part of the Inferno'.
With pencil annotations by Dr. Collecott.
1p.
75 1981 Nov. 7
From The Cottage, Greystead, Tarset, Hexham
Arranging a visit by Dr. Collecott and A.D. Moody to Greystead on 14 Nov. 1981. Comments on the gastronomic possibilities of the neighbourhood and the qualities of company to be found in its
hostelries.
With pencilled annotations by Dr. Collecott on verso
2pp.
BB MATERIAL IN THE OLIN LIBRARY, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITYReference: 76-88
Photocopies of material by or about BB among the Robert Creeley Papers in the John M. Olin Library, Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and photocopy of the Library's shelflist of its holdings of printed material concerning BB. With
covering letter from the Curator of MSS.
Presented by the John M. Olin Library, Washington University (accession 1988/89:20).
These photocopies may not be photocopied. Reproductions and permission for quotation or other use must be obtained from the custodians of the original documents.
76 31 March 1988
Kevin Ray (Curator of MSS, John M. Olin Library, University of Washington in St Louis) to Richard Caddel, Durham University Library.
Encloses photocopies (MSS 77-88) and refers to additional material in the Library's Dickey, O'Donnell and
Trocchi collections, on which the Library will answer enquiries although it cannot supply photocopies.
1p.
BB material in the Robert Creeley PapersReference: 77-8777 12 July 1951
BB, 242 Newburn Rd, Throckley, Northumberland to RC.
Thanks for and comments on copy of the magazine Origin. Mentions Cyd Corman, Alec Waugh.
2 sheets
78 undated [1965]
BB, Wylam, to RC
Encloses carbon copy of Briggflatts (MS 79). 'It'll be out in January'; [actually published Feb. 1966].
1 sheet
79 [1965]
Briggflatts, the carbon copy referred to in MS 78.
27 sheets
80 11 Jan. 1966
June Oppen Degnan, publisher,
San Francisco Review, to RC, Placitas, New Mexico.
Encloses no. 81.
1 sheet
81 28 Dec. 1965
BB, Shadingfield, Wylam, Northumberland to Mrs. June Oppen Degnan, 50 East 79th St, New York.
About an American edition of Briggflatts. Thanks for offer, made at RC's suggestion, to consider the manuscript. Will
convey it to his English publishers, Jonathan Cape.
1 sheet
82 10 Oct. 1966
BB, Isla Vista, Goleta, Santa Barbara, Cal. to RC
Impressions of Buffalo and Santa Barbara, where he lectured in 1966.
Aerogramme (photocopy on 2 sheets)
83 20 Nov. 1966
BB, Isla Vista, Goleta, Santa Barbara, Cal. to RC
Further impressions of Santa Barbara and of the 'Buffaloonatics', possibility of a New York reading organised by 'the Krayfish'. References to his three daughters, Stuart Montgomery, Hugh
Kenner, an idea for a poem on Salome.
2 sheets
84 10 Jan. 1967
BB, Isla Vista, Goleta, Santa Barbara, Cal. to RC
Praise for readings organised by the Unicorn Bookshop ('Chief bloke, Shoemaker') in Santa Barbara, names some of those being invited to read, has agreed himself to give a New York reading
organised by Miss Kray, references to his daughters Maria and Roudaba and his mother, anxieties about future employment.
2 sheets
85 13 April 1968
BB, Shadingfield, Wylam, Northumberland, to RC
Hopes to be in Buffalo, mid-June to mid-August. Possibility of tacking on poetry-reading tour organised by Miss Kray. Plans for visits to Gael Turnbull and Briggflatts' dedicatee Peggy
Mullett.
2 sheets
86 18 March 1977
BB, Corn Close, Dentdale, Sedbergh, Cumbria to RC, Gerona, Spain
Pleasure at forthcoming visit from RC. Bemoans over-crowding of Lake District.
2 sheets and photocopy of envelope
87 18 March 1977
BB, Corn Close, Dentdale, Sedbergh, Cumbria to RC, London
Repeat letter, addressed to London in case no.86 misses RC in Spain, expressing pleasure at RC's forthcoming visit. Will not be at Cambridge poetry festival. His poor view of
Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard.
1 sheet
88 [1988]
Photocopy of entries in the shelflist of the John M. Olin Library, Washington University in St Louis, recording the Library's holdings of printed material by or relating to BB.
26 sheets
BB TO DENIS GOACHERReference: 89-93
5 typescript letters, signed, 1972-73, from BB (Shadingfield, Wylam, Northumberland) to the poet Denis Goacher.
Purchased in 1990 together with MSS 94-95 (accession 1989/90:20), with assistance from the Government Purchase Grant Fund, from Words Etcetera, Child Okeford, Dorset (lot 82 in the firm's catalogue 70).
89 1972 Sept. 19
His poetry reading and broadcasting activities. Description of his return journey from a visit to Goacher in Devon. Comments on the Homeridai and Virgil.
2pp.
90 1972 Nov. 6
Plans for the memorial concert for Ezra Pound to be held in Newcastle upon Tyne, which he accurately describes as 'much the most elaborate wake for EP in England' and which emerges very much as BB's presentation, his event. Goacher, Tom Pickard,
Jon Silkin, Tony Harrison are also to take part.
2pp., with autograph postscript.
91 1973 April 8
Plans for a Pound reading which Charles Osborne has invited him to do for Poetry International at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London on June 27, and in which he asks Goacher to participate. 'I've told them we'll read Cantos only, in
such a way as to display the structure of the poem ... I would not want to do the usual daisy picking with Usura and Pity and other chrysanthemums'.
2pp.
92 1973 April 24
The inadequate remuneration offered in Britain and the U.S.A. for giving poetry readings (black marks for Sir Bernard Miles and Cambridge University, plaudit for Cardiff, educated by Dylan Thomas). 'When I read I read gratis, for people I have
some obligation to or ... want to honour ..., or I get £100, and think it ought to be more'. Comments on the Poetry Society (mixed) and the Arts Council (uncomplimentary). Goacher's and his own financial difficulties.
2pp.
93 1973 May 29
Further plans for his Pound reading with Goacher (see MS. 91). These letters reveal the care with which BB structured this event, and show the development of his thinking on the best form of presentation, with the eventual choice of the single
canto 74, and the detailed working out of his ideas on the division in reading between himself and Goacher, shedding light on his understanding of the poem's structure.
2pp.
BB TO ANNE TIBBLEReference: 94-95
2 typescript letters, signed, 1965, from BB (Shadingfield, Wylam, Northumberland) to [Anne] Tibble [editor of John Clare's poems and founder member of the John Clare Society].
Purchased in 1990 together with MSS 89-93 (accession 1989/90:20), with assistance from the Government Purchase Grant Fund, from Words Etcetera, Child Okeford, Dorset (lot 82 in the firm's catalogue 70).
94 1965 Jan. 9
Accepts an invitation to read to Mrs. Tibble's society (? John Clare Society) in April or March. Will need expenses but declines a fee ('I dont agree with Dr Johnson. No one ever wrote anything permanently good for money, and I am quite content
to have a chance of letting a few people hear my verses, some of whom may enjoy them'.)
2pp., with biro scribbles in another hand.
95 [1965] Easter Monday [April 19]
Apology for failing to keep an appointment with Mrs. Tibble. Comments on Ezra Pound's opinion of BB's poem
“The Spoils” ('approval so far as an anti-semite can approve of a poem Jews find sympathetic'), and on his own work's indebtedness to but differences from that of Pound and Eliot. Relates this to his own insistence
on the importance of music in poetry.
2pp.
BUNTING/COSSEY CORRESPONDENCE ETC.Reference: 96-107
9 letters, 1983-85, from BB to Sandra Cossey and her daughter Tanya, together with 1 letter from Tanya to BB, 1985, one sketch-map and one ms poem by BB. Tanya Cossey was a young neighbour of BB's when he lived in Washington New Town. Her
artistic abilities impressed him, and he took an affectionate interest in her education and future (she was fourteen in 1982). The letters relate to his efforts to encourage her talents as a painter and help her escape a future in a factory -
'brutalised by machines and dirt and bullied by a foreman' and pursue an artistic career. They also include family and domestic news and mention of his visitors and engagements.
Purchased 1990 from Rota, London (accession 1989/90:21)
96 23 Sept. 1982
BB (The Cottage, Greystead, Tarset, Hexham) to Sandra [Cossey]. Typescript, signed.
3pp. on 2 leaves
97 17 March 1983
BB (Greystead) to Sandra [Cossey].
Typescript, signed and with typed postscript.
Disparaging commentary on recent trends in art education - 'The new style (degrees) has not been good for art'.
5pp. on 3 leaves.
98 20 June 1984
BB (Fox Cottage, Whitley Chapel, Hexham) to Tanya [Cossey].
Autograph.
p.1-2 (incomplete).
99 28 July 1984
BB (Whitley Chapel) to Tanya [Cossey].
Typescript, signed.
Impending visit from Jonathan Williams
2pp.
100 7 Nov. 1984
BB (Whitley Chapel) to Tanya [Cossey].
Typescript, signed.
Impending visit from Peter Quartermain and his wife
2pp.
101 undated [late Nov./early Dec. 1984]
BB (Whitley Chapel) to Sandra [Cossey].
Typescript, signed, enclosing no. 102.
1p.
102 undated [late Nov./early Dec. 1984]
BB (Whitley Chapel) to Tanya [Cossey].
Typescript, signed.
1p.
103 14 Jan. 1985
BB (Whitley Chapel) to Tanya Cossey.
Autograph.
2pp.
104 undated [ca Feb. 1985]
BB (Whitley Chapel) to Tanya [Cossey].
Autograph.
Impending visit from his daughter Roudaba.
2pp.
105 undated but day and month revealed in text as 15 April [1985]
Tanya Cossey (Washington) to BB ('Dear Uncle Basil').
BB died two days later.
Autograph.
3pp. on 3 leaves.
106 [n.d.]
Sketch-map in BB's hand, showing how to find his cottage at Whitley Chapel.
2pp. on 2 leaves.
107 1977
'Snow's on the fellside, look! How deep.'.
(Translation by BB from Horace, Odes, I, ix) Autograph, dated at foot 1977.
1p.
Size: 312 x 202 mm.
Published, with minor differences of punctuation and capitalisation, in
Agenda 16, no.1 (1978) p.6. Published in Uncollected Poems (1991), p.46.
THE SPOILS108
Typescript, dated 1951, of BB's poem
“The Spoils”, signed and with autograph corrections and deletions.
“The Spoils” was first published in Poetry (Chicago) 79 no.2 (Nov. 1951) 84-97. The text is first known in a draft (now at the University of Texas) which BB sent to Louis Zukofsky for
comment in 1948. In response to Zukofsky's criticism, he reworked the poem extensively. This typescript shows him still honing and paring almost up to the moment of the poem's publication; with the deletions - mostly of only one or two short words -
the typescript is virtually identical to the published version. It has subsequently been marked up in pencil as printer's copy for the edition of The Spoils published in 1965 by the Morden Tower Book Room, Newcastle
upon Tyne; it is accompanied by a copy of the 1965 edition (MS 28A).
10pp. on 10 leaves.
Size: 280 x 220 mm. (pp.8-10, 254 x 203 mm).
Sotheby's sale 13 Dec. 1990, lot 228 (accession 1990/91:8)
BB AND BRIGFLATTS MEETING HOUSEReference: 109-110109 1977
Photocopy of the inscription and later note, 1977, written by BB on the title-page of the copy of
Briggflatts which he presented to the Brigflatts Meeting of the Society of Friends.
The 1977 note gives BB's self-defence against criticisms made by some of the Friends, when they had read the poem, that it was excessively concerned with sex.
1 sheet
Presented, 1988, by Neville H. Newhouse of the Brigflatts Meeting (accession 1987/88: 15)
110 1990
'Basil Bunting and Brigflatts': photocopy of typescript notice, to be displayed in Brigflatts Meeting House, about the relation of the poem to Quaker ideas and practice and to the area around Brigflatts. Signed GH, 17.7.90.
1 sheet
Presented by Brigflatts Meeting (accession 1990/91: 19)
BB IN TENERIFE, 1935111 [1935]
Postcard from Marian Bunting [BB's first wife], Tenerife, to Mr. and Mrs. Homer Pound [Ezra Pound's parents], Rapallo, Italy. Undated; postmarks Tenerife, 16 April 1935 and Rapallo 29 April 1935.
'Basil finds it hard to work in this climate
but hopes to do something now we have house.'
Presented by Mary De Rachewiltz, 1991 [accession 1990/91: 20]
BB TO MICHAEL BUTLERReference: 112-114
Photocopies of 3 typescript letters from BB to Professor Michael Butler (Dept of German, School of Modern Languages, University of Birmingham), 1968- 80.
Presented by Professor Butler (accession 1990/91: 28)
112 1968 November 2
From Shadingfield, Wylam, Northumberland
Has no unprinted poems. Reluctantly agrees to publication in Samphire (magazine edited by Butler and Kemble Williams) of a letter from him to Gael Turnbull about
Turnbull's A Trampoline: Poems 1952-1964, 1968, provided it appears anonymously - 'I dislike the custom of printing anybody's correspondence, since it seems as irrelevant as his laundry bills'. Comments on
Migrant, Samphire, Hamilton Finlay, Gary Snyder, Omar Pound's translation from Kasemi, Donald Davie. Acerbic disquisition on the deficiencies of contemporary poetry.
2 sheets
113 1977 November 4
From 107 Stridingedge, Blackfell, Washington, Tyne & Wear.
Unable to provide any contribution to MB's magazine [ Samphire ]. 'There are the ribs and heel of a poem on the
stocks, but whether it ever gets built and launched goodness only knows. Something is on strike'. Refers to the forthcoming publication of a new edition of his collected poems, and to The Pious Cat.
1 sheet
114 1980 March 17
From 107 Stridingedge.
About biographical note for inclusion with some of BB's poetry in an anthology MB was editing (Michael Butler and Ilsabe Arnold-Dielewicz eds, Englische Lyrik der Gegenwart: Gedichte ab
1945, Munich, Beck, 1981).
1 sheet
BB TO BARRY REDFERN115 Undated; received by Redfern 14 March 1980
Photocopy of typescript letter from BB to Barry Redfern.
Reply to letter from BR to BB on the latter's 80th birthday. Cannot share Pound's and F.M. Ford's good opinion of E.E. Cumming's poetry ('mere sentimental whimsy, dressed up in
typographical fancy dress'). Comments on Pound, Ernest Hemingway, W.H. Auden and his associates.
1 sheet
Presented by Barry Redfern (accession 1990/91: 29; with Redfern's letter of donation, Bunting MS 114A)
BB TO DENIS GOACHERReference: 116-120
5 typescript letters, signed, 1964-69, from BB (Shadingfield, Wylam, Northumberland) to the poet Denis Goacher.
Purchased in 1991 (accession 1990/91: 31), with assistance from the Government Purchase Grant Fund, from Words Etcetera, Child Okeford, Dorset (lot 68 in the firm's catalogue 78).
116 1964 December 13
His own and Tom Pickard's financial difficulties. Publishing prospects for Pickard's poems and a collected BB. Progress with
Briggflatts. 'I am impelled by love of a larger shape, more architectural, which has been so much neglected'. His own view of the extent to which he has succeeded in shaping The Spoils,
The Well of Lycopolis and Chomei as he would have wished. 'No one else but Eliot seems to care about the plan ... and Eliot is apt to make the plan to [sic] plain - council houses where
we want temples.'
2pp.
117 1965 May 26
His opinon of DG's work. Progress with his own (
The Spoils, Briggflatts ). Comments on Pound, Allen Ginsberg ('he hasnt learned to cut nor even the respectably ancient art of the pumice'), Tom Pickard, Tyne Tees Television's interest
ill-conceived, in doing a programme on Morden Tower and BB.
2pp.
118 1965 August 11
Hesitantly agrees to DG's proposition that BB should do a radio reading of some of Pound's
Cantos ('EP might not like it ... What if I committed some horrific misinterpretation?'). His relationship with Peggy Greenbank. Poetry's refusal of DG's poems. Publication arrangements
for Briggflatts. His continuing problems as a journalist wage-slave - 'If I dont somehow get free of this slavish business and its starvation wages there will be nothing with which to follow up the present
ballyhoo'.
2 pp., with autograph postscript.
119 1969 February 10
On reading poetry. Comments on a Poetry Society reading in which he had recently participated: approbation for the performances of Stevie Smith, Hugh McDiarmid, Tom Pickard, contempt for William Plomer and Christopher Logue, compassion for Ted
Hughes and Spike Hawkins. Discusses his reasons for his own choice of contributions, and the appropriate pace for reading Pound's
Canto I and his own The Spoils. His views (dim) on the reading talents of Graves, Auden and Yeats. Approbation for DG's style of reading, 'yet I'd like to say, dont let the actor gain on
the poet'.
2pp.
120 1969 December 11
His term as Northern Arts Fellow at Durham and Newcastle Universities (quiet at Durham, giving a series of lectures at Newcastle). Commitments to
Agenda for essays, as yet unwritten, on McDiarmid and Wordsworth. His radio reading from Wordsworth for a BBC broadcast in Spring 1970. His relationship with Peggy Greenbank. Defends his translation from Horace, 'You
can't grip years, Postume'. Approves DG's poems.
2pp., with envelope (Bunting MS 119A)
GUEDALLA PAPERSReference: 121-286
Correspondence and working papers of Roger Guedalla. The correspondence concerns BB, Guedalla's bibliography of him, and the building up of Guedalla's collection of books and other material by or related to BB. The working papers include
photocopies of BB letters and other papers in several other libraries.
ROGER GUEDALLA'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH BASIL BUNTINGReference: 121/1-33
24 letters and 6 enclosures, 1968-82, largely BB's letters to RG. Except where otherwise stated, all are written from Shadingfield, Wylam, Northumberland. All are accompanied by their original envelopes.
121/1 11 September 1968
BB to RG
Typed, signed, with ms postscript.
About BB's cataract operations, RG's study of his work and request for contributions to his magazine - 'I write very little poetry and no prose and just now there isn't a line unpublished' - and
BB's need for paid employment. Refers to Stuart Montgomery, Tom Pickard.
1p.
121/2 11 October 1968
BB to RG
Typed, signed.
About RG's requests for information and BB's employment prospects and needs. 'I shouldnt think Marian Bunting had anything at all that could interest you'. 'As for myself - you cant expect the corpse to help the
mortician'. Refers to Stuart Montgomery, Tom Pickard.
1p.
121/3 25 October 1968
BB to RG
Typed, signed.
About RG's attempts to trace BB's letters. 'I really do dislike all that letters and incomplete mss and such like stand for'. Gives RG a potted autobiography - 'I was born in 1900, and I am notoriously a Quaker of
sorts, though the Quakers are very uneasy about it and handle me with long tongs. The rest is all in the poems'. 'At present there is no hope of a new poem. But I am getting very tired of the poems I have written in the past, and will soon have to
write a new one to escape from them'. Refers to Louis Zukofsky.
1p.
121/4-6 6 May 1969
BB to RG
Autograph, signed.
Background to some of BB's early writings, and BB's present view of them. Musical and literary influences on his work - refers to W.B. Yeats, Mallarmé, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Horace,
Manuchehri, Dowland, Campion, Dante, Lucretius, G.M. Hopkins, Wyatt, Spenser, Chopin, J.S. Bach, Scarlatti, Byrd, Monteverdi, Schönberg, Corelli. 'Distrust anything of such a date, for I wrote with one eye on E.P. then'. 'I think, for instance, Odes
I3, might mislead'. 'But repeat, Wordsworth first: Wordsworth never out of sight'.
3pp.
121/7 9 June 1969
BB to RG
Typed, signed.
Comments on BB's early journalism.
1p.
121/8 (enclosing 121/9) May day 1970
BB to RG
Typed, signed, with ms addition.
The long winter, disappointed job expectations, comments on Tom Pickard, Stuart Montgomery, [James] Laughlin, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Louis Zukofsky. Responses to BB's new poem
“Stones trip Coquet Burn” - 'Naive people who have seen it rejoice to find me reverting to nature in the neo-Georgian sense; others unnaive complain of my eroticism. Brrr.'
2pp.
121/9
Enclosed: his poem:
“Stones trip Coquet Burn”
Carbon typescript.
1p.
Size: 178 x 204 mm.
Text as in
Collected Poems, 1978
121/10 28 May 1970
BB to RG
Typed, signed.
Factual corrections to RG's work on BB, re literary and musical influence, Briggflatts, etc. 'I never read, etc. never could read Pater'. 'Your list of composers good, except for
Lully, who did and does seem to me frilly. In Briggflatts part four not the river Rawthey, but the Till; standing for the same thing, no doubt'. 'Your industry is appalling. I am being exhumed alive'.
1p.
121/11 27 June 1970
BB to RG
Typed, signed.
Comment on the effect of BB's letter to The Times [24 June 1970], criticising the Arts Council.
1p.
121/12 7 March 1971
BB (c/o English Dept, Harpur College, S.U.N.Y. at Binghampton, New York) to RG
Autograph, signed.
On poetry readings planned in Binghampton and Ottawa, BB's dealings with some of RG's colleagues over a proposed anthology, his opinion of
Binghampton and his continuing shortage of income.
2pp.
121/13 10 March 1972
BB (c/o English Dept, University of Victoria, B.C.) to RG
Autograph, signed.
On RG's bibliography, literary references in and influences on BB's Redimiculum matellarum, his opinion of his job in Victoria,
comments on Eric Mottram, Tom Pickard.
2pp.
121/14 15 June 1972
RG (Dept. of English, State University of New York at Stony Book) to BB
Carbon copy typescript.
Reply to 121/13. Progress with his bibliography; offers BB a half share in any royalties.
1p.
121/15 24 June 1972
BB to RG
Typed, signed.
On RG's bibliography; declines to accept any share in royalties.
1p.
121/16 12 April 1973
BB to RG
Typed, signed.
Comments on the state of American and English poetry. On American, 'It came to an end with Louis Zukofsky, didnt it?' On English, 'The great resurgence of philistines and spivs in every visible section of English
life, the digging up of corpses to divert attention from the living, horrifies me.'
1p.
121/17 10 June 1973
RG (4 Galsworthy Ave, Romford, Essex) to BB
Carbon copy typescript.
Reply to 121/16, especially to BB's comments on American poetry. Mentions the poetry conference he has been organising and reports on his own prospects and plans. Asks BB
about S.J. Looker's Superman, 1934.
2pp.
121/18 11 July 1973
BB to RG
Typed, signed.
Thanks for RG's bibliography.
1p.
121/19 (enclosing 121/20-22) 6 September 1974
BB to RG Typed, signed.
'Herewith copy for your pages', enclosing two poems and the offer of two more, with a biographical note.
1p.
Printed: All four and the note were published in Polytechnic of Central London, Centre for Extra-Mural Studies,
Modern British Poetry Conference 18-20 October 1970 (London, 1970), pp.[14- 18]. RG organised the conference, at which BB read, and edited the conference booklet.
121/20
'Eheu fugaces Postume Postume' (First line: 'You cant grip years, Postume')
Carbon typescript.
1p.
Size: 204 x 180 mm.
Text as in
Collected Poems, 1978
121/21
“Stones trip Coquet burn”
Carbon typescript.
1p.
Size: 204 x 178 mm.
Text as in
Collected Poems, 1978, with one minor difference of punctuation.
121/22
Offer of two more poems (
“Two Photographs” and “All You Spanish Ladies” ), and autobiographical note ('Born 1900. Career, obscure. My friends were good friends, and some of them good poets.')
Carbon
typescript.
1p.
Size: 204 x 180 mm.
121/23 25 November 1974
BB to RG
Typed, signed.
Readings given by Hugh McDiarmid, Gael Turnbull and BB himself at the Modern British Poetry Conference, October 1974 (see 121/19-22), his antipathy to present-day London (with recollections of bygone attractions)
and detestation of bureaucratic arts administrators. Refers to the Arts Council and Northern Arts
2pp.
121/24 27 May 1976
RG (79 Wellwood Rd., Ilford, Essex) to BB
Carbon typescript.
Suggests publishing a selection of poems from BB's edition of Joseph Skirsey in RG's magazine Montemora and solicits further contributions for it
of prose or poetry by BB. Refers to Colin Simms.
1p.
121/25 12 June 1976
BB to RG
Typed, signed.
Comments (depressed) on his poetry-reading tour in the U.S.A. Replies to RG's requests for material for Montemora - 'I havent a damn thing printable.'
1p.
121/26 (enclosing 121/27-28) undated (postmark 13 March 1980)
BB to RG
Typed, signed.
Sends 'Some rubbish you might want for your bibliographical exercises'.
Enclosed (121/27-28) are extracts from Arts North March 1980, p.5 ( “Bunting at
Eighty: a Birthday Tribute” and “Our Greatest Poet?” by Peter Hodgkiss) and The Journal [Newcastle upon Tyne], December 20 1979 ( “Bunting
ground”, an 80th birthday interview with Sue Hercombe).
1p.
121/29 29 March 1980
RG to BB
Carbon typescript.
Reply to 121/26, mentioning the Bloodaxe recording of BB, and forthcoming publications about him, and wondering about BB's views on current events in Persia.
1p.
121/30-31 1 April 1980
BB (107 Stridingedge, Blackfell, Washington, Tyne & Wear) to RG.
Typed, signed.
Replies at length to BB's enquiry about his views on current happenings in Persia.
4pp.
121/32 7 December 1981
RG (79 Wellwood Rd, Ilford) to BB
Carbon typescript.
Has heard BB has almost finished a new long poem; wonders whether, if BB does not already have a publisher for it, he might let RG handle it.
1p.
121/33 undated (postmark 9 February 1982)
BB to RG
Autograph postcard.
Invites RG to 'wine etc' on the 11th at Michael Henshaw's London address.
LETTERS TO ROGER GUEDALLA ABOUT BB AND PUBLICATIONS RELATED TO HIMReference: 122-123BUNTING, Marian (BB's first wife)Reference: 122/1-25
2 letters to RG from Mrs Helen Groves, one enclosing a letter to her from Marian Bunting and 4 letters and 1 postcard to RG from Marian Bunting (henceforth MB in the description of this correspondence), Rocky Run, Poynette, Wisconsin,
1968-70.
Each letter except for the enclosure is accompanied by its original envelope.
The letters from MB give an often emotional account of her relationship with BB, their life together, the causes of the break-up of their marriage, their associates, the progress of his writing, his hatred of working for a living, Margaret De
Silver's financial support of him, etc. They mention Ezra Pound, Louis Zukofsky, René Taupin, William Carlos Williams, Adolf Dehn, Tibor Serly, Karl and Gertrude Drerup, BB's children by MB (Bourtai, Roudaba and Rustam) and his second wife Sima.
There are references to BB's hostile reviews of Malcolm Muggeridge and William Durant [the latter review not traced by RG in his bibliography] and attack on Yvor Winters.
122/1-2 1968 September 6
Mrs Helen Groves (1418 Drake St., Madison, Wisconsin) to RG.
Autograph, signed.
Has forwarded his letter to her to MB and encourages him to approach her directly.
3pp.
122/3-4 (enclosing 122/5-11) 1968 September 17
Mrs Helen Groves (address as above) to RG.
Autograph, signed.
Sends RG a letter she has received from MB and provides some further information about some of the people to whom it refers.
2pp.
122/5-11 1968 September 9
(enclosed with 122/3-4)
MB to Mrs Helen Groves.
Autograph, signed.
6pp.
122/12-16 1968 September 9
MB to RG.
Autograph, signed.
5pp.
122/17-20 1968 December 19 (? altered first from 17 and then 18. Postmarked 20 December)
MB to RG.
Autograph, signed
4pp.
122/21-23 1969 July 3
MB to RG.
Autograph, signed.
6pp.
122/24 1970 November 7
MB to RG.
Autograph, signed.
1pp.
122/25 1970 November 20
MB to RG.
Autograph postcard.
1p.
ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS
Reference: 123/1-2
Dates of creation: 1971
Enquiry from RG, 31 October 1971 about a reading given by BB under the Academy's auspices at the Guggenheim Museum on 23 March 1967, with reply, 12 November 1971, giving details of the reading and reporting that the Academy possesses a tape of
the reading.
ARTS COUNCIL OF GREAT BRITAIN
Reference: 124/1-2
Dates of creation: 1971
Enquiry from RG, 16 November 1971, about the copy of an early version of
Briggflatts believed to have been submitted by BB to the Arts Council with an application for a grant. Reply, 25 November 1971, confirms BB received a poetry award of £300 from the Council in 1965 but reports no trace
of the typescript of Briggflatts. See also RG's correspondence with Edward Lucie-Smith, 150/1- 2.
BERLIND, Bruce (enclosing letter from BB)Reference: 125/1-2Dates of creation: 30 December 1969
Letter (125/1) from Bruce Berlind (34 Carlisle Mansions, London) to RG, about BB's forceful refusal of an invitation to read to Berlind's students for a fee of £10.
Enclosing:
125/2 14 July 1969
Photocopy of BB's letter (from Shadingfield, Wylam) to Berlind.
'I am continually astonished at the arrogance of institutions which offer a poet sums which they would be ashamed to pay a railway porter ... No wonder readings are generally
perfunctory and even squalid. A beggar's pittance can buy nothing but a beggar's antics.'
1p.
BERTRAM ROTA Ltd, London booksellers
Reference: 125A/1-4
Dates of creation: 1978
Correspondence between RG and Anthony Rota, about the purchases of a typescript of
Briggflatts. The purchaser's identity is not revealed.
BRILLIANT, Alan
Reference: 126/1-4
Dates of creation: 1969-1971
Correspondence, between RG and Alan Brilliant of the Unicorn Press, Santa Barbara, Cal., publishers of the 1967 pamphlet
Two Poems by BB.
Background information on the publication of Two Poems and the reading BB gave at the Unicorn Press on publication day. Mentions a drawing of BB made on the occasion
by George Brown.
BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Reference: 127/1-11
Dates of creation: 1968-1981
Correspondence with RG, about broadcasts by or relating to BB.
Includes (127/8-11) production details of the programmes “The Living Poet”, broadcast 14 February 1981, and “Poetry Up
To Now, 7: Individuals and Survivors”, broadcast 20 February 1981.
See also 140, letter from Francis Gladstone
CARROLL, Don, London publisher
Reference: 128
Dates of creation: 1980
Note, March 1980, about readings by BB at Morden Tower, February 1980 and at Warwick University, April 1980
Ceolfrith Press, Sunderland Arts Centre
Reference: 129/1-6
Dates of creation: 1975-1976
Correspondence with RG, about a reading by BB at the Centre, June 1974, and about the press's publication of BB's edition of the poems of Joseph Skipsey
CORACLE PRESS
Reference: 130/1-2
Dates of creation: 1985
Letters from RG, about a cassette published by Coracle Press of a reading by BB on 1 February 1982
COVENT GARDEN BOOKSHOP
Reference: 131/1-8
Dates of creation: 1968- 1971
Correspondence between RG and the Covent Garden Bookshop, about BB items offered for sale by the bookshop, with bibliographic details of a possibly variant copy of
Poems 1950.
COX, Kenneth, literary critic
Reference: 132/1-15
Dates of creation: 1968-1971
Correspondence with RG. About Cox's articles on BB, with photocopied typescript of his
“Introduction to Briggflatts” (published Tuatara 1972). Comments in detail on an essay by RG on BB's use of sonata form. Includes offprint of Cox's article on Lorine Niedecker from
The Cambridge Quarterly
CREELEY, Robert, poet
Reference: 133/1-5
Dates of creation: 1968- 1971
Correspondence with RG. Creeley says he did not receive one of the 10 or so copies of the early version of
Briggflatts which BB told RG he had put together for distribution to certain friends.
DOYLE, Professor Michael of the University of Victoria, British Columbia
Reference: 134/1-7
Dates of creation: 1971-1972
Correspondence with RG. Refers to his periodical
Tuatara and his contract with Twayne for a book on BB (not published so far [1992]).
DRERUP, Gertrude
Reference: 135
Dates of creation: 14 January 1971
Letter to RG, from Thornton, Campton, New Hampshire. Mentions a recent letter from BB announcing his forthcoming three months at the State University of New York, Binghampton.
DRERUP, Karl, artist
Reference: 136/1-3
Dates of creation: 26 November 1970
Extent: 2pp.
Letter to RG,. From Thornton, Campton, New Hampshire.
Typescript, signed.
Recollections of his own and his wife's friendship with BB in the 1930's. Encloses (136/3) photograph of a painting he made of BB in 1935.
ELIOT, Valerie, widow of T.S. Eliot
Reference: 137
Dates of creation: 15 October 1968
Letter to RG. Confirms the existence of letters from BB to T.S. Eliot, but refuses RG access to them without BB's permission.
EVENING CHRONICLE, Newcastle upon Tyne
Reference: 138
Dates of creation: 9 March 1970
Letter to RG, from D. Foreman, Senior Librarian, giving details of BB's employment as a sub-editor on the
Evening Chronicle, 1954- 66.
FERGUSON, William, of The Ferguson Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Reference: 139
Dates of creation: 30 November 1969
Letter to RG. Recollections of his meeting with BB at the latter's Harvard reading of
Briggflatts in 1967, and his impressions of both the man and the reading.
GERBER, Dan of The Sumac Press, Fremont, Michigan
Reference: 139A
Dates of creation: 21 February 1971
Letter to RG. Describes a visit to BB in Northumberland and BB's comments on the work of Robert Duncan.
GLADSTONE, Francis
Reference: 140
Dates of creation: 3 January 1968 [i.e 1969]
Letter to RG.
About the film “Release” made by Gladstone and shown on BBC 2 on 23 November 1968, in which BB read and was interviewed by Richard Hoggart. Offers to allow RG to see the film and listen to the
unedited version of BB's conversation with Richard Hoggart.
GOACHER, Dennis, poet
Reference: 141/1-2
Dates of creation: November 1971
Enquiry from RG, 24 November 1971, and reply from Goacher, postmarked 30 November 1971, about details of a reading given by BB in 1965 to celebrate Ezra Pound's 80th birthday. The reading was organised by Goacher and broadcast (but only partly,
he reveals here) on the BBC 3rd programme, with D.G. Bridson as producer. Refers to two other broadcasts of BB's poems (but not read by him) with Bridson as producer in 1954 and 1957.
GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM AND GUGGENHEIM FOUNDATION, New York
Reference: 142/1-6
Dates of creation: 1971
Correspondence with RG, 1971, about BB's application for a Guggenheim Foundation Grant in 1932 and his reading at the Guggenheim Museum in 1967 (for this latter see also 123/1-2). Confirms that a brief transcript of the 1932 grant application
exists, and that references in support of the application were provided by W.B. Yeats and Harriet Monroe.
HARRISON, Tony, poet
Reference: 143/1-2
Dates of creation: 1968
2 letters to RG.
Refers to BB's tenure of the North East Association for the Arts Fellowship at the universities of Durham and Newcastle upon Tyne, which he had recently taken over from Harrison.
HODGKISS, Peter editor of Poetry Information
Reference: 144/1-57
Dates of creation: 1975-1980
Correspondence with RG,, largely relating to
Poetry Information special issue on BB, published in 1978. Letter of 18 April 1980 (144/57) mentions readings by BB at the Sunderland Arts Centre and Castle Chare Arts Centre, Durham in 1979 and Morden Tower in
1980.
HOLLAND, Barney of the Grolier Bookshop, Cambridge, Mass.
Reference: 145/1-2
Dates of creation: June 1970
Postcard and letter to RG, written during a visit to Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Postcard (145/1) describes his visit to BB. Letter (145/2), written from Tom Pickard's Ultima Thule bookshop in Newcastle includes the text of
“I suggest” BB's advice to a young poet, typed out for Holland by a young poet who visited the shop and who had been given it by BB.
KENNER, Hugh, literary critic
Reference: 146
Dates of creation: 5 October 1968
Letter to RG, referring to BB's correspondence with T.S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams.
KINGSTON, Rodger (enclosing letters from BB)Reference: 147/1-17Dates of creation: 1969-1970
Letters to RG, about Kingston's own BB collection, proposals for a collaborative volume on BB, suggestion that James Laughlin might have a renewed interest in publishing some BB. Encloses photocopies (147/12-17) of 5 letters from BB to Kingston,
all from Shadingfield, Wylam, 1969-70:
147/12 10 July 1969
BB to Kingston.
Mentions Andrew Wylie
1p.
147/13 9 August 1969
BB to Kingston.
'Thank you for the pleasant poem.'
1p.
147/14 19 December 1969
BB to Kingston.
1p.
147/15-16 May day 1970
BB to Kingston.
Dismissive about any real intention on James Laughlin's part of publishing BB's work, either in the forties or since. Dispirited comments on his lack of employment prospects, financial difficulties, and the state of Britain
generally - 'a new dead set against all the arts, a triumph of the administrators and academic teachers over everything living ... a general resurgence of everything unscrupulous, illiberal and brutal in Great Britain.'
2pp.
147/17 25 May 1970
BB to Kingston.
Discourages Kingston's proposals for a book about him - 'If people want to write about my poetry, O.K. ... But I dont like going on show in my own person.'
1p.
LAUGHLIN, James, of New Directions Publishing Corporation
Reference: 148/1-6
Dates of creation: 1968-1971
Correspondence with RG.
About letters from BB to William Carlos Williams, the whereabouts of Dallam Simpson, and bibliographical details of the anthology Confucius to Cummings
LINDSAY, Jack, author of Fanfrolico and After
Reference: 149/1-4
Dates of creation: 1976.
Correspondence with RG.
Recollections of Lindsay's acquaintance with BB in 1927- 28.
LUCIE-SMITH, Edward
Reference: 150/1-2
Dates of creation: 1971
Enquiry from RG, about the early version of
Brigflatts which BB produced in a number of typescript copies, with Lucie- Smith's reply, describing the copy he received in connection with an application BB made for an award from the Arts Council of Great
Britain.
MONTGOMERY, Deirdre, of the Fulcrum Press
Reference: 151/1-8
Dates of creation: 1970- 1972
Correspondence with RG, answering queries relating to his bibliography.
MONTGOMERY, Stuart, of the Fulcrum Press
Reference: 152/1-4
Dates of creation: 1968
Letters to RG, sending bibliographical details of Fulcrum Press publications of BB's work, and occasional news about BB.
MOYER BELL LTD, publishers
Reference: 153
Dates of creation: March 1986
Enquiry from RG, about the American ed. of BB's
Collected Poems published by Moyer Bell with 1985 imprint, with ms reply, written on RG's letter, giving information about the firm's arrangements (overtaken by BB's death) for copies to be signed by the author and
mentioning 'his last bit of polish', the version of 'Now we've no hope of going back' received from him only days before his death. This was the only poem newly added to BB's canon in the Moyer Bell edition of Collected
Poems. An earlier version had been printed in Agenda 16, 1978]. A copy of this was apparently originally enclosed with Moyer Bell's reply to RG but is no longer present.
MÜLLER, Karl, of the University of Freiburg
Reference: 154/1-13
Dates of creation: 1972-1973
Correspondence with RG, about the thesis on BB on which Müller was engaged and about matters bibliographical. Müller comments on some of the critical work on BB already published by Anthony Suter and Regis Durand and on the BB manuscripts among
the Zukofsky papers at Texas.
NIEDECKER, Lorine, poetReference: 155/1-4Dates of creation: [n.d.]
3 letters to RG, all from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, one enclosing a poem, as follows:
155/1 20 November 1968
Typescript, signed.
Reply to an invitation from RG to contribute a Bunting-related poem to the second issue of Stony Brook. Suggests that a question to her by BB in 1967 may have influenced the emergence of her
long poem “Wintergreen Ridge”.
1p.
155/2-3 17 December 1968
Typescript, signed, with ms additions.
With enclosed typescript (155/3) of her poem “The Ballad of Basil”.
Rather deprecatingly offers the enclosed poem for inclusion in Stony
Brook. Suggests willingness to publish her long poem “Paean to Place” in the same issue.
Explains its appropriateness as a salute to BB.
1p. and 1p.
155/4 11 January 1969
Autograph, signed.
Sends a proof-read copy [not now present] of “Paean to Place” for the May issue of Stony Brook. Explains how she wants the poem spaced, and her hope for
eventual publication in booklet form, a unit to a page.
1p.
NORWOOD EDITIONS publisher of RG's bibliography of BB
Reference: 156/1-57
Dates of creation: 1971-1977
Correspondence, between RG and his publishers Victor Bockris, Jerome Weiman, and colleagues. Bockris's firm was successively during the period of the correspondence Telegraph Books of Philadelphia, Folcroft Library Editions of Folcroft, Pa, and
(the imprint under which the volume finally appeared) Norwood Editions of Norwood, Pa.
OPEN UNIVERSITY EDUCATIONAL ENTERPRISES
Reference: 157/1-17
Dates of creation: 1978
Correspondence, about the Open University television programme A306/04
“Ezra Pound” and (157/6-17) sound transcript of the programme which included an interview with BB. The programme was made in 1975.
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Reference: 158/1-16
Dates of creation: 1979-1981
Correspondence, mostly with the modern poetry editor, Jacqueline Simms. About sales of the
Collected Poems, the possibility of O.U.P. doing something more for BB, comments on OUP's list of modern poets, etc. 158/4 (letter from RG, 14 November 1980) mentions reports that BB is well advanced on a new long
poem. Includes exhaustive lists of all permissions granted by O.U.P. from publication of BB's Collected Poems up to December 1981 to reprint or quote any of the poems.
PICKARD, Tom, poet
Reference: 159/1-7
Dates of creation: 1971-1981
Correspondence. Bibliographic enquiries from RG; complaint from him and apologetic disclaimer from Pickard about plagiarism of part of RG's bibliography in the programme for the 1980 Warwick celebration of BB's 80th birthday which Pickard
organised (cf RG's correspondence with Clive Bush); possibility of Pickard's publishing with Montemora.
POLI, Bernard J., of the Collège Franco-Britannique, Université de Paris (enclosing a letter from BB)Reference: 160/1-4Dates of creation: 1970
Two letters to RG, replying to enquiries from him. With the first encloses:
160/2-3 23 May 1966
Photocopy of letter to Poli from BB (Shadingfield, Wylam.
Recollections of his association with Ford Madox Ford and the Transatlantic Review. Affectionate mention of Brancusi. Generous tribute to Ford - 'What
does matter is his kindness to young men and women in distress, his readiness to talk to them at length, without being patronising or pedantic, his willingness to consider everything, the tolerance in the frivolity, the care for living English, the
generosity, the fun.'
2pp.
POUND, Dorothy, wife of Ezra Pound
Reference: 161/1-3
Dates of creation: 1968
Two letters and one post-card to RG, about permissions to publish extract from Pound's
Cantos and contacts for RG's work on BB.
POUND, Omar
Reference: 162/1-5
Dates of creation: 1968-1971
Correspondence with RG. Bibliographical information, remarks about his acquaintances with BB.
PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE
Reference: 163/1-2
Dates of creation: 27 April 1980
Letter from RG, to the Prime Minister's Secretary, suggesting that BB might be included in the next honours list, with standard reply.
QUARTERMAIN, Professor Peter, of the University of British Columbia
Reference: 164/1-7
Dates of creation: 1970-1971
Correspondence, about rival camps in the Vancouver poetry world, availability of tapes of a reading given by BB during his stay at the University of British Columbia in 1970 and an interview of him there, news of BB at the University of Victoria,
British Columbia in 1971.
RAKOSI, Carl, poet
Reference: 165
Dates of creation: 2 November 1968
Letter to RG.
Favourable comment on Stony Brook, has nothing to contribute to it on BB, 'But Bunting is worth attention'. 'My own situation still keeps me from work'.
RANDALL, Jim
Reference: 166
Dates of creation: 26 December 1969
Letter to RG, about BB's employment by Ford Madox Ford.
REAGAN, Dale
Reference: 167/1-9
Dates of creation: 1974-1977
Letters to RG, on bibliographical matters connected to Reagan's research on BB and RG's bibliography.
REZNIKOFF, Charles, poet
Reference: 168
Dates of creation: 1 November 1968
Letter to RG.
'I have never written about Basil Bunting, although I met him years ago and liked him'.
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO, LOCKWOOD MEMORIAL LIBRARYReference: 169/1-15Dates of creation: 1968
Letters to RG, reporting no letters from BB to William Carlos Williams among the Library's holdings but offering to provide photocopies of 8 other letters from BB which the Library owns, 7 of them to Peter Russell, editor of
Nine and 1 to C.D. Abbott, 'founder of this collection'; a list is attached. Photocopies of 7 of these letters are enclosed:
These photocopies may not be photocopied. Reproductions and permission for quotation or other use must be obtained from the custodians of the original documents.
169/4 1938 June 2
BB to C.D. Abbott.
'Unfortunately my income is not sufficient to permit the donation of manuscripts. I have several for sale from $150 up'. Also offers to sell a copy of Redimiculum Matellarum.
1p.
169/5 1949 September 8
BB to Peter Russell.
Sends subscription [to Nine ]. Offers one or two translations of Persian poetry, and comments on western misrepresentations of it - 'about as near Persian literature as you would be to
English if the only texts you had were Oscar Wilde and Beardsley.'
1p.
169/6-9 1950 February 28
BB to Peter Russell.
Declines invitation to contribute to a book on Ezra Pound - 'The Cantos are as much fact as the Alps and as little likely to be lost sight of, so that i just dont have anything to say.' Would like to write about Persian
poetry if he can find time - which may soon become possible since he may have to leave Iran - 'Cant make a living.' Asks Russell about job openings for 'an ex-correspondent ex- diplomat ex-intelligence boss ex-poet'. Gives his views on the value of
translations to both translator and reader, and comments on several Persian poets. Compassionate recollections of Kenneth Patchen. Mentions his wish to do an edition of the poems of Joseph Skipsey.
4pp.
169/10 1950 April 13
BB to Peter Russell.
About to return to England from Iran. 'If you know of anyone who wants a guy whose chief qualifications are Persian and spy-catching, I'm it.'
1p.
169/11 1950 May 14
BB to Peter Russell.
Better prospect of his returning to Teheran. Comments on the pros and cons of a campaign for the release of Ezra Pound. Refers to his recent re-reading of Ibsen.
1p.
169/12-14 1950 May 18
BB to Peter Russell.
Has no recollection of reading Jung. Further comment on attempts to secure the release of Ezra Pound - 'Have you, by the way, considered what might be the effect on Ezra ... At present he is free to work and protected
from intrusion'. Remarks about German poetry - 'I gave up trying to like it many years ago.' Recollections of life in Paris and Rapallo - 'Mainly a comedy. Most of the dramatis personae were comically vain, and the clash of their vanities was funny.
Little by little the spectacle reduced my own vanity to manageable proportions'.
3 sheets.
169/15 1950 July 6
BB to Peter Russell.
Likelihood that he will go to work in Italy. 'I wish I were likely to find time to let the turbidness clear out of my mind and do a bit of writing, but it does not seem very probable'. Little prospect of university
employment - acid comment on the current state of Islamic studies at London, Oxford and Cambridge.
1p.
STOCK, Noel, literary critic and biographer of Pound, of the University of Toledo, Ohio
Reference: 170
Dates of creation: 1970
Letter to RG.
Encourages his work on BB. Would like to help with information about BB's friendship with Pound but does not at present have immediate access to his own notes. 'I remember that Bunting in the late thirties protested to E.P.
about his economics and politics. In some respects they agreed but Bunting had his doubts about Pound's interpretations of events.'
SWABEY, Rev. Henry author of an article on BB in Four Pages 1948
Reference: 170A/1-2
Dates of creation: 1971
Correspondence with RG.
Swabey reports that he did not publish anything on BB in his periodical Voice. Mentions a letter from BB about Persian poetry.
THORNTON, Professor Kelsey of the University of Newcastle upon TyneReference: 171/1-13Dates of creation: 1974-1978
Correspondence with RG, about BB's lectures at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1974 and Thornton's attempts to record them:
171/2 26 February 1974
'I have not made an efficient job of it. I missed the first completely, recorded two (or three) and then missed one because the microphone I was using turned out to be faulty. I shall continue to record what I can ... I shall continue to try to
get him to publish his talks - they are not always believable, but they are typical of the man and very enjoyable'.
171/9 3 October 1977
'I don't think there is any chance of being more specific than to say that the talks in general followed a chronological pattern with readings from Campion, Herrick, Wyatt, Spenser, Sidney, Shakespeare, Walker, and then a jump to Wordsworth and
the moderns, with Ezra Pound following a comparison of Whitman and the Bible and some rounding off with Bunting and Zukovsky (and perhaps some Pickard)'. Mentions that in 1974 he got the Film and Television section of Newcastle University's
Department of Photographic and Teaching Aids to record BB reading his own choice of poets. 'These were recorded on 17th and 24th May 74 and on 7th June 1974', and consisted of readings from much the same list of poets as above, plus the Bible and
BB's own work.
171/11 10 October 1977
The tapes of BB reading 'were made as a sort of archive. I thought that the lectures were going to be made up into a Buntingesque history of poetry and, since the central argument was about the music of poetry, that could only be preserved in
performance.' Reports that these tapes are still in the University's Department of Photography and Teaching Aids - 'there they stand, unedited and, more's the pity, unused.'
TIME OUT
Reference: 172/1-10
Dates of creation: 1978
Correspondence with RG, about his review of BB's
Collected Poems 1978 [published in Time Out no.427, 9/15 June 1978], with several earlier drafts of the review.
TURNBULL, Gael, poet
Reference: 173/1-4
Dates of creation: 1979
Letter to RG (173/1), 2 March 1979, sending a photocopy (173/2-3) of his description of his visit to BB at Throckley in 1957 published in his piece on Roy Fisher's
City in Kulchur no. 9, 1962, pp.24-26. Quotes BB's reaction to Turnbull's initial 'scoutmaster' impression of him. Mentions his review of BB's The Spoils in Tlaloc (Leeds) no. 9. Reports his current impression of BB, from a phone-call for his 79th birthday - 'Physically well but weary in his soul.' With reply from RG.
TYNE TEES TELEVISION
Reference: 174/1-5
Dates of creation: 1968-1971
Correspondence with RG, about two programmes featuring BB,
“Poets Poet” broadcast 5 August 1965 in the Tyne Tees series, “The Richer Life” (no tape of this was found to survive) and “A World of My Own”
broadcast 11 June 1969.
WILLIAMS, Jonathan, poet
Reference: 175/1-12
Dates of creation: 1968-1985
Correspondence with RG. Answers to bibliographical enquiries; Jargon Society card 14 with photograph of BB against a 'Beware bull' sign; correspondence (including card with illustration of Tom [Meyer] listening to Ravel) about the production of
cassettes of BB reading by Coracle Press Galley, London, and Watershed Foundation, Washington D.C.; invitations to contribute to the
Conjunctions 8 tribute to BB. 175/12, 18 April 1985, includes Tom Pickard's account of BB's death.
WYLIE, Andrew, poet
Reference: 176/1-3
Dates of creation: 1968-1969
Letters to RG, about photographs of or related to BB in his collection, tape of BB's 1967 reading at Harvard, and the BBC2 film
“Release” featuring BB, filmed by Francis Gladstone.
Further bibliographical, biographical and book-collecting correspondence of RG relating to BBReference: 177-223
Arranged in alphabetical order of correspondent, as follows:
177
Allsop, Kenneth
178
Bertram Rota Ltd, London, booksellers
179
Biblioteca Internazionale, Citta di Rapallo
180
British Council
181
Brustlein, Janice (née Biala)
182
Bush, Clive, of the University of Warwick
183
Carcanet Press (Michael Schmidt ed.)
184
Central Office of Information
185
Clarke, Tom
186
Clucas, Garth
187
Constable Publishers
188
Corinth Books, New York (Theodore Wilentz)
189
Crozier, Andrew
190
Evening Chronicle, Newcastle upon Tyne
191
Gallup, Donald
192
Greene, Jonathan, of Gnomon Press
193
Guedalla, F.B.
194
Hallmark Cards, Kansas
195
Heller, Michael
196
Holland, Barney, of the Grolier Bookshop, Cambridge, Mass.
197
Holland, Stephen
198
Homberger, Eric
199
Horton, T. David
200
Jones, Douglas, of
Odysseus Magazine, Portland, Oregon
201
Lambert, Christopher C.P.
202
Leigh, Richard, of Simon Fraser University, British Columbia
203
Milne, W. Son
204
Mottram, Eric
205
Penguin Books
206
Poetry Society
207
PN Review
208
Randall, Joanne
209
Roberts, F.W. of the Humanities Research Center, University of Texas
210
Romeike & Curtice (London press clipping agency)
211
Rudrum, Alan, of Simon Fraser University, British Columbia
212
Sand Dollar Books, Albany, Cal. (Jack Shoemaker)
213
Serendipity Books, Berkeley, Cal. (Peter B. Howard)
214
Studio Vista Publishers
215
Suter, Anthony
216
Swallow Press, Chicago (Darrett Wagner)
217
University of Texas at Austin, Library
218
University of Texas Press
219
Walbrick, L.A., London bookseller
220
Weinberger, Eliot
221
Wilson, Robert A., of Phoenix Book Shop, New York
222
Yale University Library, Beinecke Library
223
Unidentified
Typescript, with autograph corrections, of Roger Guedalla's Basil Bunting: A Bibliography of Works and Criticism
Reference: 224
Extent: vi, 1-61, 61b, 62-92, 94-102, 102a, 103-121 pp.
[published Norwood, Norwood Publications, 1973]
Typescript drafts of individual entries for Roger Guedalla's bibliography of BB
Reference: 225/1-292
Further material for Roger Guedalla's bibliography of BB
Reference: 226/1-27
Rough ms notes by Roger Guedalla of addenda (publications, readings, recordings) to his bibliography up to c.1982, and typescript note (226/27) of conversation with Stuart Montgomery about BB at Stony Brook, 1968, including anecdotes about BB's
association with Pound in the 1920's and about his activities in Persia in the 1940's.
Guedalla's review of BB's Collected Poems, 1970
Reference: 227-229
Dates of creation: 1970-1971
Brief typescript chronology of BB's life (227), with two drafts (228/1-7, 229/1-8) of Guedalla's review of the 1970 paperback edition of BB's
Collected Poems, the latter draft marked 'Final version'. The review was published in The Nation 15 February 1971, pp.216-218.
Guedalla's 1978 exhibition on BBReference: 230-233Dates of creation: 1977-1978
Material relating to the 1978 exhibition on BB organised by Roger Guedalla for the O.U.P. to mark the publication of the 1978 edition of BB's
Collected Poems :
230/1-16 1977-1978
Correspondence, between Garth Clucas, a postgraduate student at Oxford working on BB under the supervision of Richard Ellmann, and Roger Guedalla. Clucas made the original suggestion for the exhibition and compiled the chronology of BB's life
(232) which accompanied the exhibition catalogue. The correspondence concerns Clucas's research and his contribution to the exhibition. Clucas enclosed with one letter (230/12, c. Feb./March 1978) photocopies of an unsigned carbon copy letter
(230/13, 7 Sept 1932) to BB, apparently from Ford Madox Ford, compiler of
The Cantos of Ezra Pound: Some Testimonies [published New York, 1933] and the original typescript (230/14-15) of BB's contribution to that pamphlet. The originals of this letter and typescript are said by Clucas to be
in Cornell University Library. In the published version, BB's text has been cut. In 230/16 (4 March 1978) Guedalla comments on the effect on BB's friendship with Louis Zukofsky of the latter's sale of his papers (including BB's letters to him) to
the Humanities Research Centre, University of Texas.
The photocopies (230/13-15) may not be photocopied. Reproductions and permission for quotation or other use must be obtained from the custodians of the original documents.
231/1-6 1977-1978
Correspondence, between Guedalla and Jacqueline Simms, Oxford University Press Poetry Editor, about the exhibition.
232
The chronology of BB's life compiled by Garth Clucas to accompany the exhibition catalogue.
3pp.
233
Catalogue of the exhibition, compiled by Guedalla.
10pp.
BB material at the Humanities Research CenterReference: 234/1-86
Material relating to Roger Guedalla's reseach on BB letters and papers at the Humanities Research Center, University of Texas:
234/1-2 1968
Letters from the University of Texas Library. 234/1 provides a list (not in fact complete) of the University's holdings relating to BB.
234/3-32
Call slips for mss in the Humanities Research Center, filled in by Guedalla with brief details of the Bunting mss he wished to consult there in 1971.
234/33-85
Roger Guedalla's notes summarising the content of Bunting mss he consulted at the Humanities Research Center, chiefly letters to Louis Zukofsky.
234/86
Photocopy of typescript daft, dated 1964, of BB's poem
“A thrush in the syringa sings”. The original is in the Humanities Research Center. The text differs from the published version in Collected Poems.
This photocopy may not be photocopied. Reproductions and permission for quotation or other use must be obtained from the custodians of the original documents.
BB material in the University of Chicago LibraryReference: 235-280
Photocopies of letters and papers relating to BB in the University of Chicago Library, mostly from the Poetry Magazine Papers and the Harriet Monroe Poetry Library.
These photocopies may be copied, but may not be quoted or cited in any publication without permission from the University of Chicago Library.
235-240
Typescripts of poems and a book review by BB published in
Poetry, Chicago. The typescripts are marked up for printing:
235/1-4 ca.1930
“Villon”. Published in Poetry, October 1930.
236/1-2 ca.1931
“Nothing”. Published, with title “The Word” as on this typescript, in Poetry, February 1931.
237/1-4 ca.1932
“Valentine and Orson” : review of Gemini, by John Collier. Published in Poetry, August 1932.
238/1-11 and 239/1-6 ca.1933
Two typescripts of
“Chomei at Toyama”. Selected passages were published in Poetry, September 1933.
(238/1-1-11 contains the full text, marked to indicate the passages accepted for publication; some
of the passages not selected have been removed from 239/1-6, which has been repaginated to take account of this, and the others have been crossed through).
239: “These tracings from a world that's dead”.
Published in Poetry, September 1941.
240 ca.1951
“The Spoils”. Published in Poetry, November 1951.
Subsequently issued in pamphlet form.
241-249 1929-1934
Correspondence, between Ezra Pound and Harriet Monroe, editor of
Poetry :
241 30 November 1929
EP to HM.
Seeks to persuade HM to publish a poem by BB (i.e. “Villon” ).
242/1-2 2 March 1930
EP to HM.
BB reluctant to supply autobiographical details.
243 28 January 1931
EP to HM, p.3 only.
244/1-3 16 February 1931
EP to HM.
Comments on HM's proposal to involve BB in producing an English number of Poetry, Chicago. This appeared February 1932, ed. by BB with Michael Roberts. Appends a note from William Carlos Williams
(244/3), commenting on a meeting with BB and his wife Marian, and praising BB's poetry.
245/1-8 27 March 1931
EP to HM.
Comments on the February 1932 'English' issue of Poetry, partly ed. by BB.
246 11 November 1931
EP to HM.
Reference to BB's finances.
247 14 January 1934
EP to HM.
248 27 January 1934
HM to EP
249/1-6 Undated [dated 1934 by the University of Chicago Library, but really 1933?]
EP to HM.
Encourages her, in characteristically vigorous language, to publish BB's 'long poem' [? “Chomei at Toyama” ; selected passages were accepted for publication in Poetry,
and published in the September 1933 issue]. Appended is a typescript entitled “Local Credit” (249/2-6) which includes comments in praise of Il Mare, The Rapallo paper to which BB
contributed.
250-254
Letters from Louis Zukofsky, 1920-1941, to successive editors of
Poetry :
250 1 September 1920
LZ to the editor [Harriet Monroe].
251/1-4 12 October 1930
LZ to Harriet Monroe.
About the 'Objectivist' issue of Poetry, which LZ was editing and which appeared in February 1931.
252/1-2 18 November 1930
LZ to Harriet Monroe.
More on the same subject.
253/1-2 10 April 1931
LZ to Harriet Monroe.
Replies to a number of queries on a proof she has sent him of his review of BB's Redimiculum Matellarum which appeared under the title “London or Troy?
Adest” in the June 1931 issue of Poetry. The queries concern the layout for printing several quotations from BB's poems. LZ protests against her excision of a passage in BB's “Dear be
still!” which he wished to quote; [the excision was not restored].
254 9 July 1941
LZ to George Dillon.
On BB's behalf submits for publication the ms of a poem “These tracings from a world that's dead” [published in Poetry, September 1941].
255-275
Correspondence, 1926-1957, between BB and the editors of
Poetry :
255 19 October 1926
BB, London, to the editor [Harriet Monroe].
Submits poems for publication. The letter is annotated by Harriet Monroe 'Ret[urne]d - too complicated for me!'
256 2 August 1930
BB, Brooklyn, to Harriet Monroe.
Asks when he will receive his fee for “Villon” which she accepted for publication when sent it by Pound in 1929 - 'I have got married and my wife eats too'.
257 30 November 1930
BB, Brooklyn, to Harriet Monroe.
Answers her enquiry 'Why salmon?' [the last word of “Villon” ].
258/1-2 15 December 1930
BB, Brooklyn, to Harriet Monroe.
About Louis Zukofsky's suggestion that, when BB returns to Europe in February, he might collect samples of the work of young English poets for publication in Poetry. Lists a
number of possible names.
259 5 March 1931
BB, Rapallo, to Harriet Monroe.
More about the possible 'English' issue of Poetry. Comments on the February 1931 'Objectivist' issue edited by Zukofsky.
260 19 March 1931
Harriet Monroe to BB.
About the projected 'English' issue of Poetry. Suggests she will write to the poets he recommends to solicit contributions. Asks his views on including any of the poems already in her
accepted file by ten English poets whom she lists.
261/1-2 1 May 1931
BB, Rapallo, to Harriet Monroe.
About progress in gathering material for the English issue of Poetry. Knows nothing of the poets listed in her letter, except Aldington whose work he dislikes.
262/1-3 13 July 1931
BB, Rapallo, to Harriet Monroe.
Sends her his poems “Attis” and “Fearful Symmetry”. Quotes Pound's reaction to “Attis”. Progress with other
contributions to the English issue of Poetry. 'I am engaged in rewriting Shakespere's sonnets. They can do with it'.
263 28 October 1931
BB, Rapallo, to Harriet Monroe.
Praises a recently published poem by Samuel Beckett. Would have included him among the poets recommended for inclusion in the English issue of Poetry if he had known of him.
264/1-2 [undated, late 1931]
BB, Rapallo, to Harriet Monroe.
Comments on the proofs he has received of his contributions to the English issue of Poetry : in his essay on English poetry he does not intend a personal attack on T.S. Eliot, 'it
is only his influence I want to denounce'; the printer's excision of the biological hieroglyphic in his poem “Fearful symmetry” destroys its rhythm.
265/1-2 21 January 1932
BB, Rapallo, to Harriet Monroe.
Seeks to avoid misunderstanding of the views on Eliot he has advanced in his article for Poetry by asking her to cut one phrase and to print a mitigatory letter he encloses [not
here present]. More praise for the work of Samuel Beckett.
266 9 February 1932
BB, Rapallo, to Harriet Monroe.
267 26 February 1932
BB, Rapallo, to Harriet Monroe.
Withdraws four fragments translated from the Japanese which he has submitted to her for publication. No longer wishes them to appear other than in the long poem “Chomei at
Toyama” which he has almost completed and which he now offers her.
268 27 September 1932
BB, Rapallo, to Harriet Monroe.
Offers her three short poems and explains the background to one of them, a 'Shipping' poem. Again offers “Chomei at Toyama”.
269/1-3 20 November 1932
BB, Rapallo, to Harriet Monroe.
Accepts her rejection of the 'Shipping poem'. Describes reactions to “Chomei at Toyama” by Pound, Yeats and Eliot. Has offered “Chomei” to
William Carlos Williams and James G. Leippert for publication in their periodicals, but will withdraw it if she will take it for Poetry. Has applied for a Guggenheim award to translate Firdosi's Shahnameh.
270/1-2 4 January 1933
BB, Rapallo, to M[orton] D[auwen] Z[abel], [Associate Editor of
Poetry ].
About publication of “Chomei” in Poetry. Explains his conception of the poem's shape. Would prefer it to be printed intact but accepts its
length may be too great for Poetry 's readers and guarantors. Will wait to see which extracts Zabel proposes before giving a definite reply. Comments on the work of T.S. Eliot - 'Eliot apparently finds a need to
complicate himself'. Is out of touch with what is happening to poetry in England. Lists in order the poets whose judgment he would trust next to his own - Pound, Carlos Williams, Zukofsky, Yeats, Marianne Moore, Mina Loy, Eliot.
271 24 March 1933
BB, Rapallo, to Morton Dauwen Zabel.
Reluctantly agrees to Zabel's proposals for publishing extracts from “Chomei” in Poetry.
272 2 August 1933
BB, Rapallo, to Harriet Monroe.
“Chomei” is to be published in October in Pound's Active Anthology. Asks her therefore to return the extracts she accepted for publication unless
she can publish them before then; [the extracts appeared in the September 1933 issue of Poetry ]. Criticises the quality of the work she publishes in Poetry.
273 30 August 1933
BB, Rapallo, to Harriet Monroe.
About the proofs of “Chomei” and the contents of the Active Anthology, and about his own poverty.
274 22 August 1951
BB, Throckley, Northumberland, to [Karl] Shapiro.
About publication of “The Spoils” which first appeared in the November 1951 issue of Poetry.
275 11 June 1957
Henry Rago to BB, inviting him to submit poems for publication in
Poetry.
276-280
Letters, 1932-1933 from BB in Rappallo to James G. Leippert, editor of the periodical
The Lion and the Crown (originals among the Roland Latimer Papers).
276/1-2 17 July 1932
BB to JGL.
Responds to JGL's invitation to submit contributions to The Lion and the Crown. Has no short poems available but offers “Chomei at Toyama” and
“Attis”. Also an enclosed 'essay on some commonplaces usually forgotten' and a 'rag of bad latinity' [neither enclosure is present here].
277/1-2 9 September 1932
BB to JGL.
Despite his regard for the work of William Carlos Williams, is unenthusiastic about JGL's invitation to contribute to a Williams issue of The Lion and the Crown. Praises the work of John J. Adams.
278/1-2 27 September 1932
BB to JGL.
Pound well-inclined to JGL's undertaking, but unwilling to offer contributions at this stage. BB suggests JGL might commission translations of some of Pound's work which has appeared in Italian.
279/1-8 30 October 1932
BB to JGL.
About the poetry of Archibald MacLeish; possibility JGL will print “Chomei”; describes reactions to the poem by Pound, Yeats and Eliot; praise for the criticism of René Taupin; Pound's plans for a
special issue of some magazine 'to exhibit the recent developments of American criticism'; narrates the history of BB's own relationship with Pound; asks JGL to review Zukofsky's Objective Anthology and blast Yvor
Winters' hostile review of it.
280/1-2 4 January 1933
BB to JGL.
Modified praise for The Lion and the Crown - 'There is a too goddam gentlemanly air about your contributors, including me'.
Quasha anthologyReference: 281-282
Photocopies of two letters from BB, 1970 about a proposal to include some of his work in an anthology to be edited by George Quasha for publication by Simon & Schuster [The present whereabouts of the originals of these letters is
unknown.]
281/1-2 25 November 1970
BB, c/o English Dept., University of British Columbia, Vancouver, to Alexander Nelson.
Declines the offer and comprehensively damns the choice of his work suggested ( Briggflatts pt 3), the level of fee offered,
and the proposed contents of the anthology. With ms note by Nelson sending the letter on to Quasha.
282/1-3 26 December 1970
BB, c/o English Dept, Harpur College, S.U.N.Y. at Binghampton, New York, to George Quasha.
Reiterates the refusal conveyed in 281 and elaborates it to explain his own high view of his poetry: 'I dont give a damn whether anybody reads the
poems I make or listens to them ... I am not on show, and if ever I want to “communicate” anything I'll do it in prose ... If what I make seems to me well-made, that's an end of my interest in it; and if it doesnt, I suppress it so far as I can.'
Deplores Roger Guedalla's attempts to dig up his early journalism and poems omitted from the Collected Poems. 'Poetry does not seem to me something to peddle.'
283-286 1972
Letter (283) from Roger Guedalla to Peter Russell, editor of
Nine, 10 January 1972, requesting a copy of Russell's recently advertised retrospective catalogue of his publications. With a copy of the catalogue (284), the prospectus for Russell's The Golden
Chain 1970 (285), and a carbon copy typescript of Russell's poem “The Holy Virgin of Mileseva” with author's autograph presentation inscription to Guedalla (286/1-3).
W.S. MILNE'S WORKING PAPERS ON BBReference: 287-304
Working papers on BB accumulated by W.S. Milne for his own research on the poet, including sketches of BB and photocopies of school-boy works by BB.
Presented by W.S. Milne (accession 1988/89: 4.) Photocopies of BB letters in Chicago University Library which originally formed part of this accession but duplicated material among the Guedalla papers, Bunting MSS 235-280 above, were not
retained).
287/1-9 1915
'Roncevaux by Basil C. Bunting. Ackworth School Essay Society, December 1915. Broadhead Competition, July 1916': photocopy of autograph ms of school-boy essay by BB.
With ms note on first page in Milne's hand.
9pp.
288/1-15
““T” versus “N”” : photocopy of autograph ms of a short story by BB, written in a school-boy hand and signed B.C.B. The setting for the story is Napoleon's retreat from Russia.
15pp.
289-290
Certified copies of the birth certificates of BB (born 1 March 1900, son of Thomas Lowe Bunting and Annie Bunting née Cheeseman of Denton Road, Benwell), and of his father (born 6 April 1868, son of Joseph Bunting and Mary Bunting née Lowe of
Taghill Heanor).
291-293 1970s
Three ink sketches of BB by Professor Kelsey Thornton. 291 is drawn on the verso of a 1970 invitation to the Thorntons to a Newcastle University function. 292, in red biro, is dated 25.1.74. 293, undated, is a caricature of BB and the young Tom
Pickard, with a brief typescript poem entitled
“T*m P*ck*rd at the Master's feet” on BB's enthusiasm for pruning poetry of all unnecessary words.
294/1-3 [ca.1978]
Description by Milne of a poetry reading by BB at the Northern Arts Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, 31 March 1978. Typescript, with ms corrections and additions.
295-300
Letters to Milne in response to enquiries from him about BB:
295 4 July 1978
From Friends House Library.
About evidence of BB's Quaker connections in records of the Society of Friends at Friends House - 'at no point has he become a member of the Society'.
296 8 July [1978]
From Jean Armstrong (née Greenbank), Ingmire Hall, Sedbergh
About BB's boyhood visits to her family at Brigflatts while a friend of her brother John at Ackworth School.
297-298 undated [c. July 1978]
From Jean Armstrong, enclosing a letter from her elder sister to whom she had forwarded Milne's enquiry.
299/1-3 14 July 1978
From A. MacGregor, Friends Meeting House, Brigflatts
Sends leaflet about the Meeting House, and suggests Milne should pursue his enquiries about BB and Brigflatts with surviving members of the Greenbank family.
300 28 July 1978
From the Lord Chancellor's Office
North Eastern Assize records of BB's trial as a conscientious objector do not survive.
301/1-7
'A reading of Basil Bunting's
The Well of Lycopolis ' by Milne.
Typescript with ms corr.
302/1-38
Photocopied extracts from BB's
Collected Poems, liberally annotated by Milne.
303/1-21
English translations of BB's contributions to
Il Mare, 1932-1933. Photocopied typescript.
304/1-2
Photocopied obituaries for BB's father Thomas Lowe Bunting, from
The British Medical Journal 28 February 1925 and The Lancet 14 March 1925
BUNTING ON POETRY - TRANSCRIPTS BY PETER MAKIN OF TAPED LECTURES BY BBReference: 305/1-64
The lectures were delivered at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1969 and 1974. Five lectures were advertised for the 1969 series, to be given on 16 and 30 October, 13 and 27 November and 11 December 'on the craft rather than the history
of poetry'. The 1974 series was advertised as lunchtime lectures to be given weekly 18 January-15 March, except 22 February, on poets and poetry. The content of the two series overlapped considerably. Professor Kelsey Thornton attempted to tape the
lectures but succeeded in capturing only those listed below. These transcripts were produced by Peter Makin from cassette copies of Professor Thornton's reel to reel tapes, which are now in the Basil Bunting Poetry Archive (see list of recordings in
the Archive). Copies of the tapes are available on cassette for listening (Bunting REC/C1-5). There are two copies of the transcripts, one as master and one for production for consultation.
Presented by Peter Makin (accession 1990/91: 33)
305/1-2
Introductory summary and notes by Makin.
305/3-13
Transcript of lecture delivered 16 October 1969 (Bunting REC/R5/2)
Incipit: 'I hope that I'm not here under false pretences ...'
Subject: Dance, poetry, music, the graphic arts, and their inter-relationships.
Cassette for listening:
Bunting Rec/C1, side A.
305/14-20
Transcript of lecture delivered 30 October 1969 (Bunting REC/R5/3).
Incipit: 'these are French lines. The syllables are counted'.
Subject: Chaucer to Wyatt
Cassette for listening: Bunting REC/C1, side B.
305/21-31
Transcript of lecture delivered 25 January 1974 (Bunting REC/R5/4).
Incipit: 'Well, I see we're a more select company'.
Subject: Meter and the epic; Campion.
Cassette for listening: Bunting REC/C2, side A- B.
305/32-38
Transcript of lecture delivered 1 February 1974 (Bunting REC/R5/4, cont.)
Incipit: 'We get more select each week
. Subject: Wyatt.
Cassette for listening: Bunting REC/C2, side B.
305/39-46
Transcript of lecture delivered 15 February 1974 (Bunting REC/R5/5).
Incipit: 'pointed out that English was full of spondees'.
Subject: Arden of Feversham to Dr. Johnson.
Cassette for listening: Bunting
REC/C3, side A
305/47-54
Transcript of lecture delivered 8 March 1974 (Bunting REC/R5/6)
Incipit: 'sheer presumption and extremely foolish'
Subject: Pound.
Cassette for listening: Bunting REC/C3, side B; duplicate on Bunting REC/C4, side A.
305/55-62
Transcript of lecture delivered 15 March 1974 (Bunting REC/R5/7)
Incipit: 'begin, I'm afraid, with apologies'.
Subject: Zukofsky.
Cassette for listening: Bunting REC/C5.
305/63-64
Photocopies of publicity sheets for the lectures.
POETRY INFORMATION BASIL BUNTING SPECIAL ISSUE, 1978 - EDITOR'S FILE OF CORRESPONDENCE AND CONTRIBUTIONSReference: 306-335
Includes:
Presented by Peter Hodgkiss, editor of
Poetry Information (accession 1991/92: 21)
308 23 January 1978
Letter from BB to Hodgkiss
'I've no poems unpublished'. Gives his own assessment of interviews of him in Montemora and St Andrews Review.
316-317
Two typescripts of a proferred contribution from Brent MacKay which was not published in the special issue. In this, entitled
“Basil Bunting, mentor”, MacKay describes his experience of attending BB's classes on creative writing at the University of Victoria in British Columbia in 1971.
BUNTING MSS: BB TO BASILIO FERNANDEZReference: 336-343
Photocopies of letters from BB to the Spanish poet Basilio Fernandez, 1932-33, and autograph fair copies of poems by BB given to Fernandez for comment.
Presented by Emiliano Fernandez (accession 1991/92: 17)
336/1-3 6 November 1932
Language: Italian
Letter from BB, Rapallo, to Basilio Fernandez.
Has had no word of Fernandez for three years and now Juan Ramon Masoliver has spoken of him as a rising Spanish poet. Recalls evenings spent together in Perugia. Gives an account of his own life
during the last three years, and describes the periodical [ Il Mare ] to which he and Pound are contributing in Rapallo.
337/1-2 3 January 1933
Language: Italian
Letter from BB, Rapallo, to Basilio Fernandez.
Thanks Fernandez for sending his poems. Likes their 'verbal music' but cannot comment further owing to his ignorance of Spanish. Has shown them to Juan Ramon Masoliver, who admires their
technique but finds the content less satisfactory; difficult for a young man to find something worthwhile to say. Masoliver would like to print the longest poem in Il Mare. Approves Fernandez's occupation selling
cereal - knowledge of business can furnish material for poetry; is glad of his own early study of finance. Horror at the idea of living in the western U.S.A. Has a long poem coming out shortly in Chicago. Comments bitingly on the low quality of
current Italian poetry which Il Mare is intended to improve.
338-343
Autograph fair copies of six poems by BB (Odes I, 1-4 and two extracts from
Villon ). These are early versions, probably given to Fernandez before 1930, since the five which were included in
Redimiculum Matellarum, published in that year, all differ to some
extent from the text published there, particularly in punctuation, capitalisation, and in being less rigorously pruned of unnecessary words:
338
“Weeping oaks grieve, chestnuts raise”. (Odes I, 1)
Here with title “Sad Spring”.
339
“Farewell ye sequent graces”. (Odes I, 2)
Here headed “From a Nocturne”.
340
“I am agog for foam”. (Odes I, 3)
Here with title “Foam” and without the dedication to Peggy Mullett.
341
“After the grimaces of capitulation”. (Odes I, 4)
Here with title “Aubade”.
342
“Remember, imbeciles and wits”. (Last 9 stanzas of Villon, I)
343
“That clear precision writing so much vagueness”. (Extract from second half of Villon, III).
LETTERS TO KARL DRERUPReference: 344-362
Presented by Oliver Drerup (accession 2000/2001: 4)
LETTERS FROM BB TO KARL DRERUPReference: 344-357344 n.d. [1939?]
Letter from Annie Bunting to KD
Thanks him for his portrait of BB (possibly that mentioned below in Bunting MSS. 349 and 350?), and mentions an etching he sent her a year before. Encourages him in his painting and pottery, mentions BB's
depression.
345/1-6 25 January 1938
Letter from BB to KD, from the yacht “Thistle”, Devon
KD's current work. BB has been distressed about his children, but has been sailing as a distraction. Description of the boat; he has sailed about 400 miles and mentions Ramsgate, Dover,
Southampton, Lulworth Cove, Torquay and Dittisham, where he is moored for the winter. Some account of people and events of voyage, and his possible job prospects (Colonial Service or Merchant Navy), with compliments to KD.
346 11 May 1938
Letter from BB, “care of Zukofsky” [New York] to KD
Apologises for postponing their next meeting, but has had to leave for Annapolis. Discusses sales of KD's work.
347/1-5 27 August 1938
Letter from BB, Los Angeles, to KD
Possible routes for KD to visit him, with BB's impressions of those he has travelled through. A long account of his impressions of Los Angeles, but he has found no work.
348/1-2 18 March 1939
Letter from BB (222 Riverside Drive) to KD
About to leave for Montreal. Encloses a pencil self-portrait.
349/1-2 2 May 1939
Letter from BB, Throckley, to KD
KD's work. War preparations in Newcastle, political uncertainty and dissatisfaction with Chamberlain. Lack of work, wishes to go walking in Northumberland.
350/1-3 18 August 1939
Letter from BB, Throckley, to KD
No work, weather terrible, no news or bad news about his children. Dislike of Hitler and anti-Semitism: Jewish refugees starting businesses on the Tyne and providing much-needed employment. Attaches a press
cutting of an Italian squib on the King.
351 2 September 1939
Letter from BB, Throckley, to KD
Outbreak of war, and KD's possible problems as a German refugee in the USA.
352/1-3 19 January 1940
Letter from BB, Throckley, to KD
Divorce proceedings, started at the outbreak of war, about which BB can do little at such a distance. Volunteered as crew on a minesweeper, medical permitting: little other work.
353/1-4 1 April 1942
Letter from BB, Throckley, to KD
Difficulties of corresponding during war time. Naval service, friendships in Scotland (with envelope).
354/1-2 18 July 1945
Letter from BB, Persia, to KD
Beauty of Persia, life and duties in Isfahan. Uncertain of future employment.
355/1-3 24 January 1947
Letter from BB, Throckley, to KD
Out of the RAF, with little prospect of work. Memories of Persia, especially the art and crafts.
356 9 January 1971
Letter from BB, Madison, Wisconsin, to KD
Possibility of meeting again - first since 1938 - as BB is teaching at Binghamton NY. Vision restored after cataract operations.
357/1-2 6 June 1971
Letter from BB, Wylam, to KD
Regrets not meeting owing to weather at Binghamton. Memories of the Canaries (with envelope).
LOUIS ZUKOFSKY TO KARL DRERUPReference: 358-362358/1-2 31 January 1938
Letter from LZ, Tenerife, to Gertrude and Karl Drerup
Encouraging them, in spite of the problems, in settling in in the USA. Suggests writing up their story. Social life on Tenerife.
359/1-4 10 September 1938
Letter from LZ, New York, to KD
His brother is recovering in hospital. BB in Los Angeles. Includes copies (signed ts.) of Anew 4 and 5 and Motet (with music).
360 26 September 1939
Letter from LZ, New York, to KD
Moved apartments, invitation to visit. Mentions enclosure of a letter from BB (not present, possibly one of the sequence MSS 344-357?)
361 27 December 1939
Letter from LZ, New York, to KD
Busy with writing, invitation to visit.
362 27 January 1940
Letter from Jerry [Reisman ?] to KD with additional note by LZ
Thanks KD for arranging a place for him on an art course under Prof. Schaefer. LZ invites Schaefer and the Drerups to dinner.
363/1-2 22 May 1940
Letter from LZ, New York, to KD
No contact yet with Prof. Schaefer. KD setting up a kiln, LZ has heard ceramics are having a revival; possible contacts. LZ has had no success with Columbia University.
GAEL TURNBULL, ON MEETING BBReference: 364-365
Presented by the author (accession 1996/97: 5.).
364 1962
Signed and identified photocopy of passage from
Kulchur, 7, (New York, 1967) giving account of Turnbull's first meeting with BB.
365/1-2 August 1996
Signed ts. account explaining the background to the account in
Kulchur.
GUEST, HARRY366 March 1993
“Owl song comma”, a poem written after visit to BBPA (ts with ms corrections).
1p.
Presented by the author (BBPA 1993/94: 13)
O.U. RECORDING "MODERNISM AND TRADITION"367/1-7
Open University production details (1975-1976) for recording
“Modernism and Tradition” (interviews with Philip Larkin and Basil Bunting) including Bunting's contract (photocopies) with covering letter from I. Pople, 21 June 1994.
6pp. + 1p.
Presented by Ian Pople (BBPA 1993/94:21).
LAUGHLIN, JAMES368 7 August 1989
Letter from James Laughlin, New Directions publishers, to Adam Copeland about Basil Bunting
1p.
Presented by Adam Copeland (BBPA 1994/95: 3)
BB TO MICHAEL SHAYERReference: 369-371
Presented by Michael Shayer (BBPA 1994/95: 15)
369 13 June 1966
BB to MS
Opinion and advice on his poetry (photocopy, ts.).
1p.
370 2 April 1970
BB, Wylam, to MS
About morality, the poetry of MS and Gael Turnbull, news of Pickard and Williams; BB on the Civil List (photocopy, ts.).
2pp.
371 21 February 1995
MS to R Caddel
Enclosing the copy letters, with note on material.
1p.
BB TO D.G. BRIDSON372 20 April 1965
BB, Wylam, to DGB
Letter accompanying draft of Briggflatts ; apologises for not sending recording, gives brief summary and asks for opinion. Enquires about his Gilgamesh and suggests collaboration with Turnbull
or Pickard (photocopy ts.).
1p.
Presented by Ms Marissa Januzzi. Photocopy from a photocopy (location of original not known) found in Bridson's copy of
Briggflatts, purchased by Ms Januzzi from Jaffé. Copy has presentation inscription from Bunting (“for DG Bridson/patient editor”, signed but not dated; the volume has Bridson's editorial marks in pencil). (BBPA
1994/95: 14)
COPY OF WILL OF T.L. BUNTING373 30 March 1925
Photocopy of T.L. Bunting's will (BB's father).
1p.
Presented by the Bunting Society (family history society). (BBPA 1995/96: 7)
BARLOW, ADRIANReference: 374-381
Presented by Adrian Barlow (BBPA 1995/96: 2)
374 5 February 1969
Newspaper article and interview by T.B. Webster,
“Basil Bunting - a poet of our time”, The courier, page 6.
1p.
375/1-3 [13 June 1969]
Magazine article and interview by Sally Beauman,
“Man of plain words”, Weekend telegraph, pp.30-34.
3p.
376/1-2
BB, Wylam, to AB
Letter about current activities, and comment on AB's poems (ts.). Also notes by AB on background to events and people mentioned in letter.
1 + 1p.
377/1-9 May 1973
Annotated lecture on BB given by AB in the Department of English, Durham University (ms.).
1p.
378/1-5 February 1978
Roger Guedella,
“Basil Bunting. Exhibition organized by Oxford University Press 8 - 22 March, Ely House, Dover Street, London W1 29 March - 8 April, Northern Arts Gallery, Newcastle” (to mark publication of Bunting's
Collected poems ) (ts).
5pp.
379/1-3 [1978]
Chronology of BB, compiled by Garth Clucas for the Guedella exhibition (ts).
3pp.
380 [1985]
Unpublished obituary (written for
The times of BB by AB (ts.).
1p.
381/1-2 16 April 1996
Unpublished recollections of BB by AB (wp.).
3pp.
McGONIGAL, JAMESReference: 382-383
Presented by J. McGonigal (BBPA 1995/96: 15)
382/1-7 N.D.
Seven poems “written when I was twenty or so” by JM (titles Washing my daughter's hair; Summer; Spring; At Browwell: At Ruthwell; The tree spoke; View from a dark hut; Waking [crossed out]). They have been heavily
edited by BB in red pen, apart from one, which has “I like this” written by it (ts.).
7pp.
383/1-21 [1995]
“East by North East”, poem sequence by JM (with 2pp. of notes) (wp).
1 + 18 +2 pp.
384 4 December 1995
JM to R Caddel
Letter explaining context of MSS 382 and 383 (wp).
1p.
BB TO MASSIMO BACIGALUPO385/1-2 20 March 1985
BB, Hexham, to MB
Old age prevents him travelling. Answers some questions of MB's, including information on Dodsworth (Rapallo) and complimenting MB's translation of Homage to Propertius (one poem “the
foundation document” of modern American poetry) (photocopy ts.).
2pp.
Presented by Massimo Bacigalupo (BBPA 1994/95: 7)
ANNOUNCEMENT OF FIRST READING OF BRIGGFLATTS386/1-6 13 December 1965
Programme for poetry reading at Morden Tower by Adrian Mitchell and Anselm Hollo, with announcement of reading of
Briggflatts on 22 December and text of four poems by Anselm Hollo (photocopy ts.).
6pp.
Presented by Gordon Brown (BBPA 1994/95: 18)
BB TO GRAHAM ACKROYDReference: 387-389
Presented by Graham Ackroyd (BBPA 1993/94: 3)
387 [ ] December 1970
BB, Wisconsin, to GA
Thanks for letter, too old to enjoy travel now. Spezia and Parma “Good places” (photocopy ms.).
1p.
388 12 June 1876 [1976]
BB, Wylam, to GA
Thanks for letter and 2 pictures. Has met Gary Snyder, but does not know him (photocopy ts.).
1p.
389 8 March 1981
BB, Washington, to GA
Nothing to say, too old (photocopy ms.).
1p.
BB TO RONALD JOHNSON
Presented by Ian Hamilton Finlay and Alec Finlay (BBPA 1995/96: 11)
390/1-8 7 August [1970?]
BB, Wylam, to RJ
About a “very wild, and, in my opinion, very vile letter” RJ has written to Stuart Montgomery (Fulcrum Press), apparently written championing Ian Hamilton Finlay against Montgomery. Low opinion of Finlay's early work, and
compares him with e.e. cummings and deprecates their use of “tricks of typography”. Defends Montgomery's conduct in publishing BB's work and comments on his methods. (Transcribed ms. by Susan Finlay from original, location of which not now
known).
8p.
BB AND J.J. ADAMSReference: 391-396A
Photocopies originally presented by Jane Spottiswoode (daughter of JJA) (BBPA 1993/94: 1 & 2); the originals were presented in 2003, along with 396A (BBPA 2002/3:5)
391 11 - 18 May 1925
Selected transcripts from Christabel Dennison's diary
Account of a visit from BB to JJA and CB (transcribed ms.).
1p.
392/1-4 [ca. 1925]
BB, Marlotte, Seine-et-Marne, to JJA
Has left Paris, opinion of the “artistic” group at Montparnasse. Verse on the wit of the Parisians (starts “In Paris there is no one dull”). Staying in the country with Arthur Heseltine, has no where to
live in Paris but can be reached through Zavado there. Has been ill, living on very little money and doing various jobs, although impossible to get proper work if not French. Has been reading Homer and Shakespeare, and Stendhal (the best French
prose writer, even more so than Maupassant and Rabelais). English and German better for poetry than French or Latin. (photocopy ms.).
4pp.
393/1-4 14 January 1925
BB, Jesmond, to JJA
Delayed departure for London due to illness of his father - description of angina attacks. Looking for editing work, in spite of low opinion of current editors. Intends writing on Flaubert as an ironist, commends Samuel
Butler's prose. Letter dated 14 January 1924, but envelope postmarked 1925.
4p. on 2f.
394 5 December 1924
BB, Jesmond, to JJA
Sent excellent application to Middleton Murray on JJA's advice for sub-editorship, only to find that he did not want one. Has sent Murry a “bad essay on Villon” Compliments Adam's work in
the new Transatlantic review. On Flaubert.
1p. & envelope
395/1-4 19 February 1926
BB, Newburn-on-Tyne, to JJA
The death of Christabel Dennison. Lack of work, now lecturing in adult education. A hard winter, little writing done and little reading; Dante, Wittgenstein, Eliot, Dryden, Eddington, Hardy etc. What is the role of
the artist?
12p. on 3f. & envelope
396 13 January 1926
T.S. Eliot,
The new criterion, to JJA
Has heard he has written a long poem and a novel and would like to see any work he has produced.
1p.
396A 28 April 1924
Marjorie Ashworth, assistant editor
The transatlantic review, to JJA
Thanking him for supplying his correct address - the one Bunting had noted down was not correct. Asking if he has any other work for consideration, and sending a receipt for 390
Francs for contributions to nos. 2 and 4.
1p. & 1 receipt
PAPERS ON BB AND WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
Presented by the authors via R.I.Caddel, February 2002. (BBPA 2001/2: 1)
397 2001
“William Carlos Williams and Basil Bunting's Odes”, by Stephen Burt (Macalester College)
Word processed paper presented at the 2001 MLA Convention at New Orleans.
16pp.
398 2001
“Poets Howard-Bound: Basil Bunting's Briggflatts and William Carlos Williams's Paterson”, by Dr Ian D. Copestake (University of Leeds)
Word processed
paper presented at the 2001 MLA Convention at New Orleans.
12pp.
BB LETTERS TO DENIS GOACHERReference: 399-419
Purchased from Denis Goacher with the assistance of the Purchase Grant Fund (BBPA 1995/96: 1)
399/1-3 21 August 1964
BB, Wylam, to DG
Typescript (with some ms. additions), signed. Economic difficulties prevent his writing poetry. Translating Dante (encloses 35 lines of translation from Inferno, xxix, "Many people, unheard-of wounds ...") over which he
"spent exactly forty minutes" and then made only minor alterations
3ff.
400 20 January 1965
BB, Wylam, to DG
Typescript, signed. Comments on T.S. Eliot, and briefly on Yeats and Pound. Tom Pickard's progress, including his possibly publishing DG; BB is concentrating on Briggflatts.
1f.
401 Good Friday [probably 1965]
BB, Wylam, to DG
Typescript, signed. Invites him to visit, and recommends that he contacts Gael Turnbull (year not given, but dated from reference to his still working for the newspaper [left August 1966] and similarity of letter to others of
1965).
1f.
402 11 July 1965
BB, Wylam, to DG
Typescript, signed. Forthcoming visit of DG. BB too busy with interviews to write a longer letter.
1f.
403
BB, Wylam, to DG
Typescript, signed. Agrees to Bridson recording him reading Briggflatts, which is to be published in Poetry. Doubts his own competence to perform readings from Cantos. Approval of his own manner and appearance on television.
1f. and envelope
404 4 September 1965
BB, Wylam, to DG
Typescript, signed. On King Ida's Watchchain. Comments on morals, and pessimism of some of his works. Compliments Dg's work, and mentions a new magazine Gnomon
"pious; but the verse seems tight".
1f. and envelope
405 25 February 1966
BB, Wylam, to DG
Typescript, signed. Economic worries. Briggflatts "a pretty book", and potentially a good radio programme; he is to perform with the Northern Sinfonia too. Withdrawn from Cape, but optimistic
about OUP. Suggests DG reads Pound at Morden Tower.
1f. and envelope
406 16 January 1968
BB, Wylam, to DG
Manuscript (amanuensis), signed. About his cataract operation.
1f.
407 13 September 1968
BB, Wylam, to DG
Typescript, signed. Thanks DG for his poems. Unfavourable comment on W.S. Landor (although Pound enjoyed him). Progress with cataract operations.
1f.
408 11 October 1968
BB, Wylam, to DG
Typescript (with ms. additions), signed. Busy time in London with publishers and interviews. Difficulty of train travel, and working in universities. Pound has disappeared from Paris.
1f.
409 9 January 1969
BB, Wylam, to DG
Typescript, signed. Gives address of Hugh MacDiarmid. Poets likely to be at the Festival Hall Poetry Society reading.
1f.
410/1-2 14 November 1970
BB, University of British Columbia, to DG
Manuscript, signed. Detailed suggestions that DG should "marry television and poetry by means of very short plays". Comments on Cid Corman.
2ff.
411 12 April 1973
BB, Wylam, to DG
Typescript, signed. Thanks DG for copy of Transversions. Financial problems. Critical comments on work of James Kirkup, and the current state of England.
1f.
412 14 May 1973
BB, Wylam, to DG
Typescript, signed. Planning a shared reading of Pound by them. Comments on the material, especially canto 74, which he suggest they read.
1f.
413 4 July 1973
BB, Wylam, to DG
Typescript, signed. Recollection of Auden. Comments on their Pound reading.
1f.
414 19 September 1973
BB, Wylam, to DG
Typescript, signed. Recommends DG makes a television adaptation of Old Mortality.
1f.
415 19 January 1975
BB, Wylam, to DG
Typescript, signed. Sympathy with DG's problems, family news. Early version of poem for tercentenary of Briggflatts Meeting House "Boasts time mocks cumber Rome. Wren" (some additional words, cut in published version).
1f.
416/ 14 April 1980
BB, Washington, to DG
Typescript, signed. DG's prospects, possibility of publication. Pickard at Warwick. Life in Washington. Misunderstandings by readers of Briggflatts.
1f. and envelope.
417/1-2 29 April 1980
BB, Washington, to DG
Typescript (with manuscript additions), signed. More on the Warwick event. The wretched lot of the poet. Against the "Poetry Secretariat" and the Arts Council
2ff. and envelope.
418 n.d.
Handwritten note from BB to DG, who had clearly been out when he had called (London).
1 piece.
419 1969 and n.d.
Two envelopes included with correspondence, one typescript and marked "wrong envelope", the other manuscript.
2 pieces
DENIS GOACHER ON BASIL BUNTING420/1-6 [March 1989]
Transcript, with corrections and two page introduction by the interviewer, of a two hour interview of Denis Goacher by Diana Collecott (photocopy ts.).
6p.
Presented by D. Collecott (BBPA 1994/95: 9)
Printed:
Sharp study and long toil : Basil Bunting special issue (Durham, 1995), pp.195-207.
Original recording: Bunting REC/CM37.
LETTER TO MICHAEL BUTLER421 14 November 1978
Letter from BB to Michael Butler, who has asked to put a section from
Briggflatts with a German translation in his forthcoming book [Butler, Michael and Arnold-Dielewicz, Ilsabe, eds., Englische lyrik der gegenwart. Gedichte ab 1945. Originaltexte und deutsche
prosaübertragung (Munich, 1981)]. On the difficulty of translating Briggflatts and the recent deaths of his contemporaries (photocopy ts.).
1p.
Presented by Prof. M. Butler (BBPA 2004/2005:3)
BB letters to Sister Victoria M. FordeReference: 422-452Extent: 1 file
Presented by Sister Victoria Forde, June 2006 (BBPA 2005/6:6).
It was a condition of the gift of these letters that, during her lifetime, permission must be granted by VMF to quote from Bunting's letters.
Passages from many of these letters appear in VMF's book
The poetry of Basil Bunting (Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1991): references are given for each letter below.
422 6 June 1971
Letter from BB, Wylam to VMF
Typescript, signed. Thanking her for her letter and giving full references for Scarlatti sonatas used in Briggflatts.
1f and envelope
423 29 September 1971
Letter from BB, Victoria B.C. to VMF
Manuscript, signed. The placing of the sonatas within Briggflatts. Her Persian friend's etchings.
1f and envelope
424 11 January 1972
Letter from BB, Victoria B.C. to VMF
Manuscript, signed. Sister Pitz's etchings about Briggflatts. His lack of plans to travel while in North America. Thoughts on religion.
1f and envelope
425 4 February 1972
Letter from BB, Victoria B.C. to VMF
Manuscript, signed. Thanking her for Sister Jane's etchings, which he has just received.
1f and envelope
426 4 February 1972
Letter from BB, Victoria B.C. to Sister Jane
Photocopy. Thanking her for the etchings, and wondering where they might best be displayed.
2f
427 28 February 1972
Letter from BB, Victoria B.C. to VMF
Manuscript, signed. He has always asked correspondents to destroy his letters, but realises that some do not. She can use his letters as she will do so with tact. His early journalism with
Outlook and early poems “an early self is as troublesome as an unmanageable son” and “I think nothing relevant but published poetry”. Wishing her luck
with her thesis, but prefers not to read it until completed. His impending return to England, other answers to bibliographical questions, and the various recordings of Briggflatts.
2f and envelope
Quoted
The poetry of Basil Bunting, p.27
428 23 May 1972
Letter from BB, Wylam to VMF
Typescript, signed. About his “Villon”, recommending Cox's study in Stony Brook. Relation of poetry to music, about Scarlatti and Corelli.
Comparison of his work with Eliot's. Answers to several questions. Recounts an episode on his voyage home.
2f and envelope
Quoted
The poetry of Basil Bunting, p.61, 168, 208, 210, 214, 242-7
429 29 July 1972
Letter from BB, Wylam to VMF
Typescript, signed. About Cox's criticism, and promising to chase Quartermain about tape recordings. Poor weather in England.
1f and envelope
430 23 October 1972
Letter from BB, Wylam to VMF
Typescript, signed. Answers her questions about The spoils. He needs to find a job, which will make writing poetry difficult. Manuscript postscript about Corelli.
1f and envelope
Quoted
The poetry of Basil Bunting, p.61, 203, 206, 248
431 26 February 1973
Letter from BB, Wylam to VMF
Typescript, signed. Congratulating her on finishing the book and enclosing a poem.
1f and envelope
Quoted
The poetry of Basil Bunting, p.242-7
432 February 1972
“Such syllables flicker out of grass”. Printed poem with ms corrections and comment “First draft ...”. Faint pencil comments on back.
1f
433 3 April 1973
Letter from BB, Wylam to VMF
Typescript, signed. Replying to her questions about Persian poetry; the weather; a sculpture of his head in clay.
1f and envelope
434 21 April 1973
Letter from BB, Wylam to VMF
Typescript, signed. Acknowledging receipt of her typescript.
1f and envelope
435 4 July 1973
Letter from BB, Wylam to VMF
Typescript, signed. Letter about her thesis, and the slim possiblity of publishing it. Giving readings of Pound in London, and Wordsworth for the BBC. Enclosing his corrections.
1f and envelope
Quoted
The poetry of Basil Bunting, p.107, 153, 161, 163, 174, 175-6, 202
436 [April - June 1973]
Typescript corrections and comments on her thesis.
8f
437 11 May 1975
Letter from BB, Wylam to VMF
Typescript, signed. Poetry Society event in honour of his 75th birthday. His
Collected poems difficult to obtain. Financial problems and not writing (apart from enclosed poem). Sima
in Persia. Another dissertation on his work.
1f and envelope
Quoted
The poetry of Basil Bunting, p.103-4, 244
438 1975
Typescript poem,
“At Briggflatts Meetinghouse” signed “B”.
1f
439 [May 1980]
Letter from BB, Blackfell, Washington to VMF
Typescript, signed. About the publication of her work. Attending an Ezra Pound conference at Orono, otherwise he now does very few public readings. Old age and the deaths of his contemporaries,
especially Tibor Serly.
1f and envelope
Quoted
The poetry of Basil Bunting, p.62
440 2 June 1981
Letter from BB, Tarset to VMF
Typescript, signed. Relief at moving from Washington. Offers to proof-read her book. Unsure if he will write any more.
1f and envelope
Quoted
The poetry of Basil Bunting, p.62, 244
441 1 December 1981
Letter from BB, Tarset to VMF
Typescript, signed. News of Colin Simms and possible progress on printing her book. Suggestions of places to visit when she comes to London and if she travels north. His pleasure at being in his new cottage.
2f and envelope
442 2 January 1982
Letter from BB, Tarset to VMF
Typescript, signed. Listing his schedule of readings in London. Suggests that February may be too early in the year for a visit to Northumberland. The weather has been bad. Suggests other people she might like to
contact in London.
1f and envelope
443 28 February 1982
Letter from BB, Tarset to VMF
Typescript, signed. Thanking her for birthday present. The car has been fixed in preparation for her arrival. Pleased to have met her at last.
1f and envelope
Quoted
The poetry of Basil Bunting, p.63-4, 64
444 7 March 1982
Letter from BB, Tarset to VMF
Typescript, signed. Looking forward to her visit, possible travel arrangements.
1f and envelope
445 16 March 1983
Letter from BB, Tarset to VMF
Typescript, signed. Apologises, has been tired and writes very few letters. Potential publishers for her book and other writers. Spent time as guest of Ted Hughes in Devon, judging a poetry competiton. His
birthday in London and life in Tarset.
2f and envelope
Quoted
The poetry of Basil Bunting, p.65, 65-6
446 18 December 1983
Letter from BB, Tarset to VMF
Manuscript, signed. Has to move out of his cottage. Trying to arrange art course for Tanya Cossey. Finding TV appearances dull and repetitive.
1f and envelope
447 14 July 1984
Letter from BB, Whitley Chapel to VMF
Typescript, signed. Difficulties of finding a new cottage and how it has been managed.
2f and envelope
Quoted
The poetry of Basil Bunting, p.66, 67
448 19 March 1985
Letter from BB, Whitley Chapel to VMF
Typescript, signed. Life in his cottage and family news.
1f and envelope
449 [2005]
“Background for letters of Basil Bunting and a remembrance of my visits with him, March 1982”. Memoir by VMF giving background information about the letters, the writing and publication of her book, and the
occasions on which she met Bunting.
9f
450 19 April 2006
Copy of email from Jane Pitz to VMF describing the process creating the colour etchings of
Briggflatts (referred to in several of the letters).
Colour photographs and negatives of the images (without indication of order or titles).
1f, 8 photographs and 3 negative strips
451 [1980s]
Inkjet prints of 6 photographs with annotations by VMF.
Bunting with his daughter Maria and the mechanic when his car broke down during VMFs visit, March 1982.
Bunting's daughter Bourtai with VMF, Colorado.
Bunting's daughter Roudaba with VMF, holding painting of Bunting by Karl Drerup.
Bunting's daughter Roudaba with VMF, at home, Seattle.
Bunting's son Tom with VMF, London 1982.
Bunting during their visit to Hermitage Castle, Newcastleton, March 1982.
2f
452 December 2005
Language: Spanish
Photocopy of Matías Serra Bradford,
“El poeta como agente secreto”; article on Bunting in Diario de poesia (Buenos Aires) .
1f
BB notes on poetry
Presented by Peter Quartermain, via Ric Caddell (BBPA 2004/5.7)
453 [1972]
“How to write Persian”. 3 pages of manuscript instructions by Bunting, written for Peter Quartermain between October 1971 and March 1972.
3f
454 1969-1970
Typescript and manuscript texts of lectures on poetry given by Bunting at Newcastle upon Tyne and Durham, 1969-70, and at Vancouver in 1971-2.
Sections: “Thumps” (30f); “Ears” (11f); “Wyat” (23f); “Spenser” (17f); “After Spenser” (16f); “Realism” (14f);
“BB with brothers [Wordsworth]” (7f); “Whitman” (7f); “Wordsworth & XIX century” (17f); “Precursors” (19f);
“1910-20” (18f).
On 7 x 8 inch sheets, consisting of the text of the lecture but not the poems (sometimes with the time for reading the poem indicated).
1 file (179f)
Printed:
Basil Bunting on poetry, ed. Peter Makin (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999).
Bunting REC/C6-9: partial recordings of some of the lectures given at Newcastle upon Tyne.
BB letters to his daughter RoudabaReference: 455-515
Presented by Roudaba Bunting Davido, 2006 (BBPA 2005/6:4)
455 14 April 1966
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Manuscript letter. His joy at making contact with her again. About the re-awakening of his enthusiasm for poetry and the reception of Briggflatts. His finding Peggy again. Family news. To
read some poems with the Northern Sinfonia in June and has read Briggflatts for the BBC.
2f
456 30 August 1966
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. He is to work at University of California, Santa Barbara and hopes to be able to see her there. He has met with Bourtai and their mother.
1f
Quoted
The poetry of Basil Bunting, p.76
457 7 September 1966
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. Repeats his offer to meet at Santa Barbara; family news.
2f
458 29 October 1967
BB, from Goleta, CA, to RD
Manuscript letter. Family news; teaching at Santa Barbara; Fulcrum Press preparing his collected works.
2f
459 5 November 1967
BB, from Goleta, CA, to RD
Manuscript letter. Possibility of her nursing in England. Family news.
2f
460 20 November 1967
BB, from Goleta, CA, to RD
Manuscript letter. About the prospects for her working in England. Enclosing:
2f
461 14 November 1967
Gael Turnbull, Worcestershire to BB
Typescript airmail letter explaining current pay and conditions of nursing work in England.
1f
462 undated [1968]
BB, from Goleta, CA, to RD
Manuscript letter. Potential costs of living in England. Family news.
2f
463 16 January 1968
BB, [from Goleta, CA], to RD
Manuscript letter. Recent cataract operation; family news.
1f & envelope
464 4 March 1968
BB, from Goleta, CA, to RD
Typescript letter. Hospitals in the Wylam area. Family news.
1f & envelope
465 14 April 1968
BB, from Goleta, CA, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news. Recording in London, publications and a Harvard thesis about him.
1f & envelope
466 5 June 1968
BB, from Isla Vista, to RD
Manuscript letter. About to leave USA, unsure of future employment. Family news.
2f
467 30 August 1968
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. His second cataract operation. Family news.
1f
468 11 October 1968
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news. Visits to David Jones, Gael Turnbull, Charles Tomlinson and Peggy.
1f
469 10 January 1969
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news. Request to make a film.
2f
470 10 June 1969
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. Teaching at Durham and Newcastle. Travelling out in Northumberland. Family news.
471 4 August 1969
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. Pressure of work from visitors and letters, covering teaching at Newcastle distracting “from the poem I have by now well in mind, but of which only two lines are
written”. Family news.
472 19 January 1971
BB, from New York, to RD
Manuscript letter. Just arrived by air. About to visit Louis Zukofsky.
1f
473 21 February 1971
BB, from SUNY at Binghampton, to RD
Manuscript letter. Life at the University. Family news.
2f & envelope
474 29 March 1971
BB, from SUNY at Binghampton, to RD
Manuscript letter. Future employment prospects. Family news.
3f & envelope
475 9 April 1971
BB, from SUNY at Binghampton, to RD
Manuscript letter. Family news.
1f
476 7 June 1971
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news. Possible employment.
1f & envelope
477 31 July 1971
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news. Possible employment.
1f & envelope
478 10 December 1971
BB, from Victoria BC, to RD
Manuscript letter. Life at the University. Family news.
3f & envelope
479 1 January 1972
BB, from Victoria BC, to RD
Manuscript letter. Family news.
1f & envelope
480 29 January 1972
BB, from Victoria BC, to RD
Manuscript letter. Family news.
1f & envelope
481 5 September 1972
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news.
1f & envelope
482 19 September 1972
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news. Visit to Denis Goacher.
1f & envelope
483 23 October 1972
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news.
1f & envelope
484 10 November 1972
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news.
1f & envelope
485 9 February 1973
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news.
1f & envelope
486 4 June 1973
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news. “Poem goes very slowly indeed”. Visits.
1f & envelope
487 23 November 1973
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news. A film about him by CBS.
2f & envelope
488 14 October 1974
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news. Teaching and other work. Producing two anthologies.
2f & envelope
489 12 June 1976
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. Visit to USA. Family news. Completed the Skipsey anthology.
1f & envelope
490 2 August 1976
BB, from Wylam, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news.
1f
491 15 March 1977
BB, from Sedbergh, to RD
Manuscript letter. Family news.
2f & envelope
492 5 July 1977
BB, from Washington, to RD
Manuscript letter. Family news.
2f & envelope
493 27 February 1978
BB, from Washington, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news. “I have a bit of a poem done”.
2f
494 19 April 1978
BB, from Washington, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news; her possible visit.
1f & envelope
495 23 June 1978
BB, from Washington, to RD
Typescript letter. Plans for her visit.
1f & envelope
496 20 August 1978
BB, from Washington, to RD
Typescript letter. Plans for her visit.
2f & envelope
497 3 December 1978
BB, from Washington, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news.
1f & envelope
498 5 December 1979
BB, from Washington, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news. Television interview and plans to mark his 80th birthday.
2f & envelope
499 13 March 1980
BB, from Washington, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news.
1f & envelope
500 17 July 1980
BB, from Washington, to RD
Typescript letter. Opportunity to meet while he is in Orono.
1f & envelope
501 2 August 1980
BB, from Washington, to RD
Typescript letter. Visited Venice. Plans for Orono visit.
1f
502 22 September 1980
BB, from Washington, to RD
Typescript letter. Exhausted after return from Orono.
1f & envelope
503 2 December 1980
BB, from Washington, to RD
Typescript letter. Visited Paris and Amiens. Family news.
1f & envelope
504 26 January 1981
BB, from Washington, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news.
1f & envelope
505 1 June 1981
BB, from Tarset, to RD
Typescript letter. Moved from Washington. Family news.
1f & envelope
506 29 June 1981
BB, from Tarset, to RD
Typescript letter. Being filmed. Family news.
2f & envelope
507 [September 1981]
BB, from Tarset, to RD
Typescript letter. Visitors and family news.
2f & envelope
508 9 December 1981
BB, from Tarset, to RD
Typescript letter. Cold weather. Visitors and family news.
3f & envelope
509 28 February 1982
BB, from Tarset, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news. Returned from a month in London. Met many people at readings, including Margaret Drabble.
2f & envelope
510 27 November 1982
BB, from Tarset, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news.
2f & envelope
511 9 August 1983
BB, from Tarset, to RD
Typescript letter. A televison programme for Tyne Tees. Family news.
3f & envelope
512 9 November 1983
BB, from Tarset, to RD
Manuscript letter. Will have to leave his cottage. Family news.
4f
513 23 June 1984
BB, from Fox Cottage, to RD
Manuscript letter. Moving to Whitley Chapel.
1f & envelope
514 11 July 1984
BB, from Fox Cottage, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news.
1f
515 26 November 1984
BB, from Fox Cottage, to RD
Typescript letter. Family news. The miners' strike.
2f & envelope
Letter516 3 April 1978
Typescript letter from BB, Washington to M. Ryan, declining to do an interview and complaining about the biographical approach to poetry.
1p.
Presented by M. P. Ryan (BBPA 2012/13:2)
Photographs
A draft ms. list of the photographs is in progress.
BUN.Pho.01 February 1978
Basil Bunting reading Wordsworth at the Roundhouse
Size: 41 x 55 cm
Presented by Roger Guedalla in 1990 (BBPA 2001/2:9)
