I am inspired by Moira Russell’s A Constant Reader to quote some poetry here from time to time; after all, what could be more language-oriented? Today’s portion is from Basil Bunting, the great and nearly forgotten Northumberland poet, of whom Allen Ginsberg said “I’ve taken his model syntactical swiftness as corrective for my own ‘too many words'” and W.S. Merwin “There is no one like him among English poets of his time.” Herewith the first of his two little gems dedicated to Anne de Silver:
Not to thank dogwood nor
the wind that sifts
petals are these words,
nor for a record,
but, as notes sung and received
still the air,
these are controlled by
yesterday evening,
a peal after
the bells have rested.
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