Basil Bunting Quotes
Born: March 3, 1900
Basil Bunting, the Northumbrian master of modern poetry, distilled creativity into a fierce, musical precision. A follower of Ezra Pound, he rejected ornamentation for a philosophy of sound and clarity, believing art must be hard-won, like a sculptor chipping away at stone. His masterpiece, *Briggflatts*, is a testament to this vision, weaving personal memory with elemental landscapes. Bunting’s quotes resonate because they strip creation down to its essence, urging artists to listen for the rhythm beneath chaos. His legacy endures as a reminder that true art is not decoration, but a disciplined, resonant act of life itself.
Basil Bunting Quotes (5)
"Whether you listen to a piece of music, or a poem, or look at a picture or a jug, or a piece of sculpture, what matters about it is not what it has in common with others of its kind, but what is singularly its own."
— Basil Bunting"Can a moment of madness make up for an age of consent?"
— Basil Bunting"Always carry a corkscrew and the wine shall provide itself."
— Basil Bunting"The mystic purchases a moment of exhilaration with a lifetime of confusion; and the confusion is infectious and destructive. It is confusing and destructive to try and explain anything in terms of anything else, poetry in terms of psychology."
— Basil Bunting"To appreciate present conditions, collate them with those of antiquity."
— Basil Bunting