Bunting, Basil

The Spoils

Newcastle, England: The Morden Tower Book Room, 1965. First Edition. Chapbook in Sewn Wrappers. Offered here is "The Spoils" by famed English Modernist poet, Basil Bunting (1900-1985). Bunting, a famously musical versifier who in his day was consider THE promulgating inheritor of Ezra Pound's concept of "melopoeia" (the "tone leading of the vowels" in poetry), here displays his (now uniquely antiquated) vision for [then-] contemporary English & American prosody. Allen Ginsberg, for example, famously sat Bunting down at a party in England and read him all of "Howl" and "Kaddish" in one setting, to which Bunting replied: "Too many words." While Basil does do an excellent job inheriting the molecular obtuseness and drama of Ezra Pound's sense of vowel music (think EP's "Sestina: Altaforte" & lines like, "With fat boards, bawds, wine and frail music!" there interred), it is decidedly different from the New American Poetic variant; decidedly different than the musics of Kerouac, Frank O'Hara, and other noted masters of vowel-based (as opposed to syllable-based) prosody. The work is excellent and important multifariously, however -- and the musicality it exemplifies forms only one aspect by which (or through which) the curious reader or aspirant scholar might valuate its impact or worth. Chapbook in sewn wrappers: First Edition, and the first standalone printing of this poem. From the collection of scholar, poet and our dear friend Robin Eichele (b. 1941), noted Mimeograph Revolutionary & co-founder (with the late, great John Sinclair [1941-2024]) of the Detroit Artists’ Workshop. In Very Good condition with only moderate-to-enunciated shelf-wear, bumping, rubbing & select bump-creasing to front, back covers & corners & fine-edges of same; moderate-to-significant age-toning throughout, otherwise clean. Very Good. [Item #6447]

Price: $40.00