22 Mar Basil Bunting

“I’ve travelled the world and lived in many a place. Each place is somewhat different but nothing is like America where so many people are kidding themselves.”

I met Basil Bunting at SUNY Binghamton in 1970 where he was a one-semester professor of poetry. The above quote was my recollection of Basil’s insight which has remained with me for more than 50 years.

Basil was born in Northumberland, travelled extensively and worked as an international reporter and British intelligence officer. But he is best remembered as a poet who had a close relationship with Ezra Pound in Italy in the 1930s. He was married a Kurdish woman.