''Briggflatts'' is a long
poem
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...
by
Basil Bunting
Basil Cheesman Bunting (1 March 1900 – 17 April 1985) was a British modernist poet whose reputation was established with the publication of '' Briggflatts'' in 1966, generally regarded as one of the major achievements of the modernist traditio ...
published in 1966. The work is subtitled "An Autobiography." The title "Briggflatts" comes from the name of
Brigflatts Meeting House
Brigflatts Meeting House or Briggflatts Meeting House is a Friends Meeting House of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), near Sedbergh, Cumbria, in north-western England. Built in 1675, it is the second oldest Friends Meeting House in Eng ...
(spelled with one "g" in Quaker circles), a
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...
Friends meeting house
A Friends meeting house is a meeting house of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), where meeting for worship is usually held.
Typically, Friends meeting houses are simple and resemble local residential buildings. Steeples, spires, and ...
near
Sedbergh
Sedbergh ( or ) is a town and civil parish in Cumbria, England. The 2001 census gave the parish a population of 2,705, increasing at the 2011 census to 2,765. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, it lies about east of Kendal, no ...
in
Cumbria
Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...
, England. Bunting visited Brigflatts as a schoolboy when the family of one of his schoolfriends lived there, and it was at this time that he developed a strong attachment to his friend's sister, Peggy Greenbank, to whom the poem is dedicated. It was first read in public on 22 December 1965 in the medieval
Morden Tower
The Morden Tower in Back Stowell Street on the Newcastle town wall, West Walls of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and a Grade 1 listed building. Since June 1964, Connie Pickard has been custodian of Morden Tower, and ...
, part of
Newcastle town wall
The Newcastle town wall is a medieval defensive wall, and Scheduled Ancient Monument, in Newcastle upon Tyne, northern England. It was built during the 13th and 14th centuries, and helped protect the town from attack and occupation during times ...
, and published in 1966 by
Fulcrum Press
Fulcrum Press (1965 – 1974)
quoting Rathna Ramanathan, "English little presses, book desig ...
.
["A Basic Chronology"]
Basil Bunting Poetry Centre''. Accessed 2006-12-01. Bunting also wrote another poem with "Briggflatts" in its title, the short work "At Briggflatts meetinghouse" (1975).
''Jacket Magazine''; accessed 2006-12-01.
, accessed 2006-12-01.
The poem
The poem begins with an
epigraph reading: "The spuggies are fledged". The text contains a note explaining that the word means "little sparrows" in a north-east dialect.
[Davie, Donald. ''Under Briggflatts''. University of Chicago Press, 1989, p. 40.] The poem itself has a five-part structure. The first part has a regular structure of 12
stanza
In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian language, Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or Indentation (typesetting), indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme scheme, rhyme and ...
s each containing 13 lines. In the following four parts the stanzas vary in length from
couplets
A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...
to
quatrains
A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines.
Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Persia, Ancient India, Ancient Greec ...
to stanzas of more than 20 lines. The
rhyme scheme
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other.
An example of the ABAB rh ...
also changes throughout the poem as the bulk of the text appears in
free verse
Free verse is an open form of poetry, which in its modern form arose through the French ''vers libre'' form. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.
Definit ...
while other lines do contain rhyming patterns.
The poem is noted for its use of sound;
[Helen Price,]
Human and NonHuman in Anglo-Saxon and British Postwar Poetry: Reshaping Literary Ecology
(unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Leeds, 2013), pp. 179-92. Bunting believed that the essential element of poetry is the sound, and that if the sound is right, the listener will hear, enjoy and be moved; and that there may be no need for further explanation.
"Poetry, like music, is to be heard. It deals in sound - long sounds and short sounds, heavy beats and light beats, the tone relations of the vowels, the relations of consonants to one another which are like instrumental colour in music. Poetry lies dead on the page until some voice brings it to life, just as music on the stave, is no more than instructions to the player. A skilled musician can imagine the sound, more or less, and a skilled reader can try to hear, mentally, what his eyes see in print: but nothing will satisfy either of them till his ears hear it as real sound in the air. Poetry must be read aloud."
unting, 1966. The Poet's Point of View', included in Basil Bunting, Briggflatts (2009). Bloodaxe Books, Northumberland
Critical response
Mark Rudman suggests that "Briggflatts" is an example of how free verse can be seen as an advance on traditional metrical poetry. He cites the poem to show that free verse can include a rhyme scheme without following other conventions of traditional
English poetry
This article focuses on poetry from the United Kingdom written in the English language. The article does not cover poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, including Republican Ireland after December 1922.
The earliest ...
. To Rudman, the poem allows the subject to dictate the rhyming words and argues that the "solemn mallet" is allowed to change the patterns of speech in the poetry to meet with the themes discussed in the text.
[Rudman, Mark. "Word Roots: Notes on Free Verse". ''Conversant Essays: Contemporary Poets on Poetry'', Wayne State University Press, , p. 153155.]
Reviews
Nicholson, Colin E. (1980), review of Basil Bunting reads ''Briggflatts'', in ''
Cencrastus
''Cencrastus'' was a magazine devoted to Scottish and international literature, arts and affairs, founded after the Referendum of 1979 by students, mainly of Scottish literature at Edinburgh University, and with support from Cairns Craig, then a ...
'' No. 4, Winter 1980-81, p. 45,
References
* Bunting, 1966. "The Poet's Point of View", included in Basil Bunting, ''Briggflatts'' (2009). Bloodaxe Books, Northumberland.
External links
''Briggflatts'' recordingRead by the author (
mp4).
Review of ''Briggflatts''{Dead link, date=November 2022 (in Spanish).
Brigflatts Quaker Meeting House homepage
1966 poems
English poems
Poetry by Basil Bunting