46. AIR 27/2266, KEW.
47. AIR 27/2266, KEW.
48. AIR 27/2329, 14 May 1942, KEW. The chain of command in the Middle East was, as we shall see, Byzantine, and Iraq was HQ for many who were actually operating in Iran and elsewhere.
49. BB to LZ, 4 October 1942, HR.
50. BB to DP, 29 June 1947, LILLY.
51. BB to LZ, 4 October 1942, HR.
52. BB to LZ, 4 October 1942, HR.
53. AIR 27/2329, KEW.
54. BB to LZ, 4 October 1942, HR.
55. AIR 27/2329, KEW.
56. DESC.
57. DESC.
58. A. H. Layard, Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia (London, 1894), 162).
59. Layard, 162.
60. BB to LZ, 9 May 1943, HR.
61. PAID, 126.
62. BB to LZ, 4 October 1942, HR.
63. DESC. Bunting was already in Cairo, according to his service record, when he became an officer.
64. PAID, 63. Tom Pickard, for one, thinks this story a fabrication designed to tease Bunting’s young American friend (conversation with author, May 2013).
65. S. Johnstone Where No Angels Dwell (London, 1969), 121.
66. Johnstone, 121.
67. AIR 27/1419, KEW.
68. BB to DP, 22 November 1946, LILLY.
69. AIR 27/1419, KEW.
70. AIR 27/1420, KEW.
71. BB to DP, 10 December 1946, LILLY. Bunting was much taken by this token of religious gratitude. He told Victoria Forde in 1972 that, ‘there is a convent in Sicily where I’m told they still pray for me because of some trifling politeness I was able to show them during the war. It is something to value’ (BB to VF, 11 January 1972, DUR).
72. Turnbull and Whyte, 48.
73. BB to DP, 8 January 1947, LILLY.
74. BB to DP, 22 November 1946, LILLY.
75. CONJ, 157.
76. BB to DP, undated but November 1949, LILLY.
77. BB to LZ, 25 July 1944, HR.
78. Turnbull, 48.
79. BB to DP, Throckley, 22 November 1946, LILLY.
80. Turnbull and Whyte, 50–1.
81. DESC.
82. BB to EP, 21 January 1947, LILLY.
83. K. Jeffery, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service, 1909–1949 (London, 2010), 421–2.
84. Jeffery, 436.
85. R. Bullard, The Camels Must Go: An Autobiography (London, 1961) 221–2.
86. A. Milani, The Shah (London, 2011), 67.
87. Milani, 69.
88. Milani, 69.
89. PI, 44–5.
90. JIC Report quoted in F. H. Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War, Volume 2 (London, 1981), 81.
91. Hinsley, 83.
92. The Security Service 1908–1945: The Official History (Kew, 1999), 271.
93. Jeffery, 688.
94. BB to LZ, 21 April 1945, HR.
95. BB to KD, 18 July 1945, DUR.
96. BB to KD, 18 July 1945, DUR.
97. BB to LZ, 6 August 1945, HR.
98. BB to DP, 27 November 1946, LILLY.
99. BB to LZ, 21 April 1945, HR.
100. BB to DP, 1 May 1947, LILLY.
101. BB to LZ, 17 October 1947, HR.
102. Turnbull and Whyte, 50.
103. Turnbull and Whyte, 48.
104. BB to LZ, 6 August 1953, HR.
105. BB to LZ, 3 November 1948, HR.
106. BB to LZ, 10 June 1946, HR.
107. FORDE, 49.
108. DISJ, 141.
109. BB to LZ, 13 March 1951, HR.
110. BB to LZ, 19 April 1951, HR.
111. B. Butters, ‘Don’t keep poetry to yourself – read it aloud’, Victoria Daily Times, 13 October 1971, 3.
112. BBNL, 49.
113. Paige, 346.
114. O. Pound and R. Spoo (eds), Ezra and Dorothy Pound: Letters in Captivity 1945–1946 (New York, 1999), 249.
115. Witemeyer, 224.
116. Pound and Spoo, 281.
117. Pound and Spoo, 303.
118. Pound and Spoo, 327.
119. Pound and Spoo, 349.
120. BB to MS, 2 September 1949, DUR.
121. BB to KD, 24 January 1947, DUR.
122. BB to Robert Creeley, 12 July 1951, DUR.
123. B. Ahearn, The Correspondence of William Carlos Williams and Louis Zukofsky (Middletown, 2003), 385.
124. BB to DP, 22 November 1946, LILLY.
125. BB to LZ, 21 January 1947, HR.
126. BB to Mary Baratti (later de Rachewiltz), 21 March 1947, DUR.
127. BB to LZ, 5 May 1947, HR.
128. BB to DP, 10 December 1946, LILLY.
129. BB to LZ, 10 June 1946, HR.
130. For example in BB to DP, 10 December 1946, LILLY, and BB to LZ, 10 June 1946, HR.
131. BB to EP, 7 December 1946, LILLY.
132. BB to EP, 7 December 1946, LILLY.
133. BB to EP, 25 March 1947, LILLY.
134. BB to LZ, 4 November 1946, HR.
135. BB to DP, 10 December 1946, LILLY.
136. BB to DP, 10 December 1946, LILLY.
137. DESC.
138. BB to DP, 8 January 1947, LILLY.
139. BB to DP, 24 January 1947, LILLY.
140. BB to DP, 11 February 1947, LILLY.
141. BB to DP, 20 April 1948, LILLY.
142. BB to DP, 20 February 1947, LILLY.
143. BB to DP, 29 June 1947, LILLY.
144. BB to DP, 22 November 1946, LILLY.
145. BB to LZ, 5 May 1947, HR.
146. BB to DP, 17 May 1948, LILLY.
147. BB to DP, 29 June 1947, LILLY.
148. BB to DP, 17 December 1947, LILLY.
149. BB to DP, 17 May 1948, LILLY.
150. BB to LZ, 20 August 1947, HR.
151. BB to DP, 17 December 1947, LILLY.
152. BB to LZ, ‘June the New Moonth’ 1953, HR.
153. BB to DP, 11 April 1948, LILLY.
154. BB to DP, 17 May 1948, LILLY.
155. BB to DP, 17 December 1947, LILLY.
156. CP, 130.
157. BB to LZ, 28 July 1949, HR.
158. CP, 131.
159. BB to LZ, 28 July 1949, HR.
160. CP, 228.
161. T. Cole, ‘Bunting: Formal Aspects’, Poetry (78, 6) September 1951, 366–9.
162. ‘Just about a thousand years ago Rudaki wrote a dialogue which I find fresh to this moment’ (Reading in 1978 in Leeds, published by Keele University in 1995).
163. Bunting noted that this poem was probably wrongly attributed to Sa‘di. (CP, 159.)
164. Reading, 9 December 1970, the University of British Columbia, published by Keele University, 1995.
165. CP, 160.
166. L. Zukofsky, A Test of Poetry (New York, 1948), 107–8.
167. CP, 132.
168. Reading in February 1982 in London.
169. SSLT, 207.
170. BB to MS, 28 August 1948, DUR.
171. BB to MS, 28 August 1948, DUR.
172. BB to DP, 28 August 1948, LILLY.
173. BB to DP, 17 May 1948, LILLY.
174. BB to MS, 2 September 1949, DUR.
175. BB to MS, 2 September 1949, DUR.
176. BB to LZ, 5 March 1949, HR.
177. BB to DP, 14 April 1949, LILLY. The Times was his new employer.
178. BB to DP, 11 April 1948, LILLY. The ageing officer referred to is Oakshott rather than himself.
179. BB to LZ, 3 November 1948, HR.
180. BB to DP, 30 May 1967, LILLY.
181. BB to DP, 30 May 1967, LILLY. Bunting certainly prized Islamic culture. ‘Reverting to the West,’ he wrote to Zukofsky, ‘has made me more convinced than before that we’ve got to learn almost everything from the East (which, to the measure of my limited experience is the lands of Islam) before there’s a chance of any peace of mind or dignity for most of us’ (BB to LZ, 10 May 1953, HR). The Spoils ‘said more to the point about Islam, Israel, Persia, and what they should show us than
ten dozen special reports’, he wrote in a splenetic letter to Margaret de Silver in 1953 (BB to MS, 9 April 1953, DUR).
182. See C. Tripp, A History of Iraq (Cambridge, 2007), 105–34.
183. BB to DP, 26 September 1948, LILLY.
184. Multi: Basil Bunting from the British Press (Berkeley, 1976), unpaginated.
185. BB to Charles Deakin, 2 November 1948, Times archive, quoted by Tom Pickard.
186. BB to Charles Deakin, 10 January 1949, Times archive, quoted by Tom Pickard.
187. BB to MS, 2 September 1949, DUR.
188. BB to MS, 28 August 1948, DUR.
189. BB to MS, 2 September 1949, DUR.
190. BB to MS, 2 September 1949, DUR.
191. R. Payne, Journey to Persia (London, 1951), x.
192. Payne, 194–6.
193. BB to DP, 15 May 1949, LILLY.
194. BB to LZ, 29 March 1953, HR.
195. BB to MS, 28 May 1953, DUR.
196. BB to TP, 18 January 1979, SUNY.
197. BB to DP, 9 June 1949, LILLY.
198. B. Ahearn (ed.), The Correspondence of William Carlos Williams and Louis Zukofsky (Middletown, 2003), 414.
199. BB to LZ, 17 June 1949, HR.
200. BB to LZ, 17 June 1949, HR. Nasser Khan Qashqai was the tribal chief of the politically important Qashqai people.
201. BB to LZ, 6 August 1949, HR.
202. BB to LZ, 5 September 1949, HR.
203. BB to MS, 3 January 1950, DUR.
204. BB to MS, 3 January 1950, DUR.
205. BB to MS, 27 April 1951, DUR.
206. BB to DP, 13 April 1950, LILLY.
207. BB to DP, 25 July 1950, LILLY.
208. BB to DP, 14 May 1950, LILLY.
209. BB to DP, 20 July 1951, LILLY.
210. BB to DP, 14 May 1950, LILLY.
211. BB to LZ, 20 July 1950, HR.
212. BB to LZ, 12 November 1950, HR.
213. BB to DP, 14 April 1949, LILLY.
214. BB to LZ, 12 November 1950, HR.
215. MONT, 71.
216. B. Bunting, Poems 1950, ed. D. Flynn (Galveston, 1950), ii.
217. Mary de Rachewiltz, ‘For B. B.’, SSLT, 193.
218. BB to DP, 3 September 1950, LILLY.
219. BB to GT, undated but January 1965.
220. Pound, Cantos, 781. Eliot wrote, in The Waste Land, ‘these fragments I have shored against my ruins’. The other neglected poet is Allen Upward.
221. H. Kenner, ‘A resurrected poet: The Chisel’, Poetry, September 1951, 361–5.
222. BB to DP, 24 August 1951, LILLY.
223. Northern Review of Writing and the Arts in Canada, IV, 5 (1951), 45–7.
224. V. Koch, ‘The Necessary Angels of Earth’, Sewanee Review, LIX, 1951, 670–1.
225. T. Cole, ‘Bunting: Formal Aspects’, Poetry (78, 6) September 1951, 366–9.
226. DISJ, 141. According to Tom Pickard, who would also have had this from Bunting, there is some evidence to suggest that the journalistic trip to Italy was a cover. Bunting was known to be an expert on Italy, and ‘there is a strong possibility that he may have been acting as a stringer for them. The communists formed the largest political party in Italy, and there was a fear that they would take the country into the Soviet sphere of influence. Bunting was being sent there to assess the likelihood of that happening. Unfortunately his cover was blown at the airport “by some fool from the embassy” who recognized him.’
227. BB to LZ, 12 November 1950, HR.
228. BB to DP, 12 November 1950, LILLY.
229. BB to LZ, 12 November 1950, HR.
230. BB to DP, 12 November 1950, LILLY.
231. BB to LZ, 12 November 1950, HR.
232. BB to DP, 29 November 1950, LILLY.
233. BB to LZ, 14 March 1951, HR.
234. BB to EP, Bertrand Russell, Ahmad Suratgar, Arthur Waley, G. M. Wickens, 30 December 1950, BRBML.
235. BB to EP, 14 February 1951, BRBML.
236. BB to EP, 14 March 1951, LILLY.
237. BB to LZ, 14 March 1951, HR.
238. BB to EP, 14 March 1951, LILLY.
239. BB to Peter Russell, 14 May 1950, SUNY.
240. BB to LZ, 14 March 1951, HR. ‘Pea: Italian novelist, pretty good. Peasant origin’ (BB to LZ, 19 April 1951, HR).
241. BB to LZ, 19 April 1951, HR.
242. BB to DP, 16 April 1951, LILLY.
243. BB to DP, 14 May 1951, LILLY.
244. BB to T. S. Eliot, 2 May 1951, HR.
245. BB to LZ, 9 July 1953, HR.
246. BB to LZ, 28 September 1953, HR.
247. BB to EP, 14 November 1955, BRBML.
248. BB to EP, 11 November 1964, BRBML.
249. BB to DG, 26 May 1965, DUR.
250. BB to DP, 12 November 1950, 31 January 1951, 14 May 1951, LILLY.
251. BB to MS, 27 April 1951, DUR. He had told Margaret the previous year that the only news that year from his ‘ex-family … is a card which reached me a few days ago, printed, indicating that my daughter Bourtai married a man called Scudder two or three months ago’ (BB to MS, 3 January 1950, DUR).
252. BB to DP, 24 June 1951, LILLY.
253. BB to MS, 30 June 1951, DUR.
254. BB to MS, 30 June 1951, DUR.
255. BB to DP, 20 July 1951, LILLY.
256. BB to LZ, 14 March 1951, HR.
257. BB to DP, 20 July 1951, LILLY.
258. BB to DP, 24 August 1951, LILLY. It was ‘oil troubles’ that delayed his visa (BB to Karl Shapiro, 22 August 1951, DUR).
259. BB to DP, 24 August 1951, LILLY.
260. BB to DP, 24 August 1951, LILLY.
261. DESC.
262. BB to DP, 9 June 1949, LILLY.
263. P. Stothard, ‘Put out the birthday Bunting’, Times, 29 January 1999. To be fair Stothard does acknowledge that Bunting was a ‘great’ poet.
264. BB to DP, 24 August 1951, LILLY.
265. Times, 22 August 1951.
266. BB to DP, 30 November 1951, LILLY.
267. BB to EP, 24 March 1952, LILLY.
268. BB to LZ, 17 June 1952, HR.
269. BB to EP, 24 March 1952, LILLY.
270. P. Stothard, ‘Journalist spies’, Times Literary Supplement, 27 September 2009.
271. Times, 14 April 1952.
272. Stothard, TLS.
273. BB to MS, 1 October 1952, DUR.
274. BB to EP, 17 March 1953, LILLY.
275. BB to The Times quoted by Tom Pickard in George Oppen Memorial Lecture, 2004.
276. E. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran (Cambridge, 2008), 117.
277. D. Bayandor, Iran and the CIA: The Fall of Mosaddeq Revisited (Basingstoke, 2010), 203–4.
278. C. M. Woodhouse, Something Ventured: An Autobiography (London, 1982), 115.
279. Bayandor, 64–8.
280. See M. Axworthy, Empire of the Mind: A History of Iran (London, 2007), 239–44.
281. Woodhouse, 108–19.
282. N. R. Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (New Haven, 2003), 130.
283. C. de Bellaigue, Patriot of Persia: Muhammed Mossadegh and a Very British Coup (London, 2012), 194–7.
284. BB to LZ, 27 October 1953, HR.
285. BB to EP, 9 July 1953, BRBML.
286. BB to MS, Throckley, 1 October 1952, DUR.
287. ‘I’m on half pay until October, and would be sent back to Persia by the Times if Mosaddeq should fall’ but ‘we’ll cease to have an income just about the time we are due to have another baby’ (BB to LZ, 17 June 1952, HR).
288. BB to TP, 13 June 1976, SUNY.
289. BB to MS, 27 September 1953, DUR.
290. SSLT, 197.
291. BB to MS, 28 May 1953, DUR.
292. Multi: Basil Bunting from the British Press (1976).
293. SSLT, 196.
294. BB to EP, 18 May 1952, LILLY.
295. BB to EP, 18 May 1952, LILLY.
296. ‘83 Answers … and Some Questions’, Basil Bunting and Jonathan Williams, introduced by
Eric Robson, BBC North East, 17 August 1984 and 19 April 1985. 242 Newburn Road was certainly not ‘very small’. It is a large, semi-detached, family house.
297. BB to MS, 1 October 1952, DUR.
298. B. Ahearn (ed.), The Correspondence of William Carlos Williams and Louis Zukofsky (Middletown, 2003), 455.
299. Witemeyer, 292.
300. BB to LZ, 29 October 1953, HR.
301. BB to LZ, 5 December 1953, HR.
302. BB to LZ, 5 December 1953, HR.
303. BB to LZ, 28 August 1948, HR.
304. Nine, 4, August 1950, 217–19; Fragmente 1, 1, 1951, 7; Imagi, 5, 3, 1951.
305. BB to LZ, 28 August 1948, HRC.
306. ‘The Spoils’ ‘is said to be the most difficult poem I have written’ (Reading in spring 1977, London). He told Victoria Forde in 1972 that he had cut out more of the poem than Zukofsky had wanted him to, and condensed two movements into one, ‘thus keeping a dense tissue, but losing the symmetry I had planned. That makes it lopsided. And too obscure’ (BB to VF, 23 October 1972, DUR).
307. BB to VF, 23 October 1972, DUR.
308. Reading in February 1982, London.
309. P. Quartermain, ‘Take Oil/and Hum: Niedecker/Bunting’ in E. Willis (ed.), Radical Vernacular: Lorine Niedecker and the Poetics of Place (Iowa City, 2008), 276.
310. CP, 56.
311. BB to LZ, 18 June 1953, HR.
312. K. Alldritt, Modernism in the Second World War: The Later Poetry of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Basil Bunting and Hugh MacDiarmid (Berne, 1989), 96.
313. Guardian, 15 July 1957.
314. SSLT, 201.
315. BB to LZ, 22 June 1951, HR.
316. BB to EP, undated but April 1954, BRBML.
317. SSLT, 201.
318. BB to EP, 5 March 1935, BRBML.
319. Turnbull and Whyte, 52.
320. BB to LZ, 2 December 1948, HR.
321. T. Pickard, George Oppen Memorial Lecture, 2004.
322. BB to DG, 20 January 1965, DUR.
323. BB to LZ, 31 December 1950, HR.
324. BB to DP, 17 March 1953, LILLY.
325. BB to MS, 9 April 1953, DUR.
326. BB to MS, 27 September 1953, DUR.
327. BB to LZ, 29 March 1953, HR.
328. BB to LZ, 18 June 1953, HR. The Customs authorities eventually valued Bunting’s car ‘at exactly six times the highest price I have been offered for it’ (BB to LZ, 27 October 1953, HR).
329. BB to EP, 9 July 1953, BRBML.
330. BB to LZ, 28 September 1953, HR. He also revealed in this letter that the Colonial Office had turned him down for an ‘excellent job in Trinidad’.
331. DISJ, 142–3.
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