Basil Bunting led a quite remarkable and full life. And he wrote some wonderful poetry along the way. For openers, he was born in Northumberland, which had to have been a terrific place to grow up early in the 20^th century, with its old castles, lovely gardens, country pubs, ocean vistas, and a tradition of spoken poetry and ballads that stayed with him throughout his days.

As a Quaker, he spent time in the notorious Wormwood Scrubs prison for refusing to fight in World War I. From there, he matriculated to, of all places, the London School of Economics. Then he was off to Paris, where he worked for Ford Madox Ford on the Transatlantic Review, and then to Rapollo, where he worked for Pound, and became friends with Yeats. Later he was to say of these three great men of letters that they "egged him on," for which poetry lovers should be eternally grateful.

Bunting's biography tells of two marriages, the second to a Kurdo-Armenian with the exotic name of Sima Alladadian; several children by each wife with names like Boutai, Roudaba, Rustam, Sima-Maria, and Thomas Faramaz; a stint during World War II in Persia as a squadron leader with the RAF and as a translator; numerous jobs around the world as a journalist and teacher, including one at the University of California at Santa Barbara; a welcome period of fame when his poetry was "discovered" in his later years; and finally a quiet death after a short illness at a hospital in his beloved Northumberland, where he once said he hoped to die, "if the bloody Northumbrians will let me."

The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry states that Bunting once said of himself, "War, poverty, and love oppressed and illuminated him. He hated law, dogma, press pimps, and the peddlers of culture. He liked life and risk when he could afford them. As for dying, he would be content to let the servants do that for him, if he had any."

I have always liked Bunting's poetry. And I am quite sure I would have liked him as a person. Look him up on the web, if for no other reason than to see some pictures of him. Not only was he a fine poet. He looked like a poet should look. God willing, we'll return to Bunting's work again in these pages. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this poem. It is not profound. But it is quite good. There's a story here, of course. But Bunting never told it. His ironclad rule about his poetry was "Never explain."