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Basil Bunting

From the Odes

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

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


From Briggflatts

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

Briggflatts, including a CD of Bunting reading the entire poem, and a DVD documentary on Bunting is available: Briggflatts, published by Bloodaxe Books


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

Thomas Wyatt

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

Ezra Pound

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

Edmund Spenser

Walt Whitman

  • Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking (18:54): MP3

Louis Zukofsky

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

Northumberland, 1981, 1982

  1. Opening Statement on Northumbrian art (1:12): MP3
  2. Interview with Tom Pickard, June 17-18, 1981 (13:14): MP3
  3. Interview with Philip Trevelyan, March 10, 1982 (3:33): MP3
Interview with Peter Bell, September 3, 1981 (1:00:12): MP3
  1. Quaker beliefs and Atheism (4:23): MP3
  2. Music and poetry (3:44): MP3
  3. Influence of editing (2:41): MP3
  4. Central themes; animals (2:22): MP3
  5. Wordsworth and the Romantic poets (8:08): MP3
  6. Standard English and dialects (2:25): MP3
  7. Saling and navigation's relevance to poetry (3:26): MP3
  8. Place and memory (2:23): MP3
  9. Central images; the stone mason (3:01): MP3
  10. 20th century poets (4:20): MP3
  11. On reading well (3:18): MP3
  12. Similarities between Pound, Eliot, and Bunting (6:11): MP3
  13. Arcangelo Corelli's compositions (2:26): MP3
  14. Bloodaxe as King; influence of visual art (5:00): MP3
  15. Cubist influence on design and balance (5:13): MP3

Northumberland, November 10, 1984

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

Basil Bunting on PennSound Daily

These recordings are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights to this recorded material belong to the authors. © Estate of Basil Bunting 2009. Used with permission of Bloodaxe Books, with thanks to Neil Astey. Distributed by PennSound.