Briggflatts

`Briggflatts is one of the few great poems of this century. It seems to me greater each time I read it' - Thom Gunn

`His poems are the most important which have appeared in any form of the English language since T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land'- Hugh MacDiarmid.

Bunting called Briggflatts his `autobiography'.It is a complex work, drawing on many elements of his life, experience and knowledge, and features the saint Cuthbert and the warrior king Eric Bloodaxe as two opposing aspects of the Northumbrian - and his - character. Its structural models include the sonata form (and Scarlatti's music in particular) and the lattice-work of the Lindisfarne Gospels, while thematically it recalls Wordsworth's Prelude.

Bunting wrote that `Poetry, like music, is to be heard.'His own readings are essential listening for a full appreciation of his highly musical poetry. This new edition includes a CD with an audio recording Bunting made of Briggflatts in 1967 and a DVD of Peter Bell's 1982 film portrait of Bunting. As well as his posthumously published `Note on Briggflatts', the book includes Bunting's seminal essay on sound and meaning in poetry,'The Poet's Point of View', and other helpful background material. All his poetry is available in his Complete Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2000).