Poet Bio

Though his major poems were not written until late in life, and despite the sporadic composition of his poetry, Basil Bunting wrote some of the most enduring verse of the twentieth century. Born in Northumberland, England, and raised in Quaker boarding schools, Bunting lived all over the world, working for Ford Madox Ford in Paris, for the British Government in Persia, and as a professor in California. Through his literary connections, he became an associate and disciple of Ezra Pound, who greatly influenced Bunting’s poetry. Believing that sound is the only indispensable facet of poetry, Bunting evokes his Northumberland dialect in short, strong lines, which are often allusive and dense, as illustrated in his poem “Coda.”