Matthew
It's not your fault, but England's, or rather England's ruling literary
classes, that you only found out about Briggflatts a few years ago. Bunting
having been ignored for a bunch of pipsqeaks in comparison, while in North
America, where Pound & the line through Williams etc had some hold, 'we'
(well, you know what I mean: a certain number of poets & readers who carede
about such things) have long recognized Bunting as one of the few major
poets of British modernism (if that isn't in some ways an oxymoron, at
least until quite recently).
A person can get somewhat riled up about this, I confess (somewhat sardonic
& sad grin at this point): Bunting was nearly dead before he was even
noticed in Britain: just one of the greatest of the century. At least
Donald Davie made some of the necessary points, finally. And the Bunting
project or whatever it's called is getting important stuff out, but so
late, & for so long the 'establishment' just couldn't be bothered to notice
this genius who didn't belong to them, but was there, dammit...
Glad you found the poem; it speaks in its own way to whoever does...
Doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
You may allow me moments
not monuments, I being
content. It is little,
but it is little enough.
John Newlove
