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| Basil Bunting (1900-1985) |
Basil Bunting was an English poet from Northumberland, the northernmost county of England, at the east border with Scotland. He is one of my favorite poets. I will present a short poem by him, then a brief gloss.
This selection is from the "Second Book of Odes". It is the second ode, indicated with the numeral "2".
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| Aster amellus, a.k.a. the European Michaelmas Daisy |
Three Michaelmas daisies
on an ashtray;
one abets love;
one droops and woos;
one stiffens her petals
remembering
the root, the sap
and the bees' play.
1965
This is a lovely erotic miniature. So evocative, and so condensed.
- The "Michaelmas daisy" is a variety from the "aster" family of flowers. "Michaelmas" is a traditional Christian holiday celebrated on September 29 in honor of the highest of the archangels, Michael. Michaelmas occurs just after the autumn equinox and is associated with the beginning of autumn. Daisies are members of a very large and varied family of plants known as the Asteraceae, a family that includes the asters, too. [The French name for the daisy is "marguerite", a common girls' name. The English equivalent is Margaret--which is commonly abbreviated by the nickname "Peggy". Bunting's masterwork, Briggflatts, also from 1965, bears the dedication "For Peggy". One of the cores of Briggflatts is young love and desire remembered. Intensity lived and re-lived is the thread woven throughout Briggflatts.]
- To "abet" is to aid or assist in an action or plan. Traditionally, the prognostic game of pulling petals off a flower to prove love is done with a daisy: "He loves me"; "He loves me not"; "He loves me"; "He loves me not"....So, a daisy that abets love is a daisy that has lost a petal (or some odd number of petals). Note that he anthropomorphizes the flowers and gives them motive action.
- To "droop" is to hang limply or to bend limply from a stiff or upright position. To "woo" is to try to win the heart of someone or to seek marriage with someone. So, in this case, to droop and woo is to turn the face away coyly in order to attract. A coquettish turn of the head.
- Petals--and the flower herself--are a metaphor for female genitalia. Note Bunting's very specific use of the feminine pronoun "her". He anthropomorphizes the flower, and gives it gender; some flowers are "male" only, some are "female" only, some are both, as botanists had long understood when he wrote this poem.
- "Root" is the word for the part of a plant that branches out into the ground to provide a base and collect nutrients and water from the soil. It is also a colloquial term for a penis.
- "Sap" is the word for the liquid in plants that is analogous with blood. In context, we might think of semen and female lubrication. Flowers lure bees and other fertilizing insects and birds, etc., by producing nectar, a clear, sweet, viscous liquid. (The word "nectar" originally meant the drink of the gods, and it was not until the 17th Century that it was first used in English to mean the clear, sweet liquid provided by flowers.)
- Bees flit upon the flower, tickling, stimulating, entering, sipping with their proboscises, fertilizing.
The first two flowers are fading and losing life. The first flower is already losing petals. The second is drooping. This is what happens to picked wildflowers. But those characteristics are more than descriptive.
The fortune-telling flower--a silly presenter of falsehood and fairy-tale love--and the teasing flower get short attention. There follows a line break that divides the poem into two quatrains, and then fully half the poem is given to the third flower alone, the flower that surrenders to and embraces erotic love. She is living, swelling with life, love, and passion. The third flower is abloom with vitality, desire, and love.
The poet's approbation is given to a genuine, earthy, life-affirming love.
__________
There will be future posts on Bunting's work, and specifically on Briggflatts, which I consider one of the most beautiful long poems in English.
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