SpokenVerse | What The Chairman Told Tom by Basil Bunting (read by Tom O'Bedlam) @SpokenVerse | Uploaded March 2012 | Updated October 2024, 10 minutes ago.
Basil says this came from a real interview and is pretty much verbatim. Here's the best article on Basil I could find.
"Minor poet, not Conspicuously Dishonest."
jacketmagazine.com/10/cadd-bunt.html
I like his adage about poetry which applies to all Art "Never explain." Benjamin Jowett would have added, to make it more general, "Never apologise and never make the same mistake again."
Poets and artists were seen as disreputable and most of them lived up to expectations. The Chairman's reaction would not have been uncommon. The poets would say that people who lived tightly-controlled, well-ordered lives felt threatened by the freedom of existentialism, its disregard for propriety, its anarchy. The Chairman would say that he was defending his principles: his work ethic, his respect for people who laboured to support their families and hold society together. The poem reflects how polarised society was then with respect to work and art.
This was about the time of Jean-Paul Sartre and the existentialists, the tenet that every human being was endowed with unlimited freedom - and such ideas seemed alarming and dangerous to those with traditional values. The most important thing to remember about Sartre is that he never wore a black sweater and beret. He dressed smartly in normal clothing of his day.
Now I'm reminded of a film with Tony Hancock called The Rebel. He works in a city office, going work in a pin-stripe suit, bowler hat and umbrella. But he's a rebel: he hangs his umbrella with the handle pointing to the left whereas the other clerks hang theirs pointing to the right. He escapes from London life, goes to Paris and becomes an artist. In the next scene with his artist friends, he's telling them how everybody in London goes to work in a uniform, they're all slaves to convention in their black bowler hats, pin-stripe suits and umbrellas - and they're all laughing. But, as he is talking, the camera pulls back and pans around the room - and everybody is wearing a black rollneck sweater and a black beret.
There are plenty of pictures of Basil as an old codger, but I could only find one of him as a younger man, in the 1930's. He was a friend of Ezra Pound at that time and Pound's influence can be seen in his work.
Basil was a celebrated reader with a distinctive style. He sounds very much like Ezra Pound. Many of his readings survive. I swear I didn't listen to him beforehand - that's never a good idea:
poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=7501
Poetry? It's a hobby.
I run model trains.
Mr Shaw there breeds pigeons.
It's not work. You don't sweat.
Nobody pays for it.
You could advertise soap.
Art, that's opera; or repertory—
The Desert Song.
Nancy was in the chorus.
But to ask for twelve pounds a week—
married, aren't you?—
you've got a nerve.
How could I look a bus conductor
in the face
if I paid you twelve pounds?
Who says it's poetry, anyhow?
My ten year old
can do it and rhyme.
I get three thousand and expenses,
a car, vouchers,
but I'm an accountant.
They do what I tell them,
my company.
What do you do?
Nasty little words, nasty long words,
it's unhealthy.
I want to wash when I meet a poet.
They're Reds, addicts,
all delinquents.
What you write is rot.
Mr Hines says so, and he's a schoolteacher,
he ought to know.
Go and find work.
Basil says this came from a real interview and is pretty much verbatim. Here's the best article on Basil I could find.
"Minor poet, not Conspicuously Dishonest."
jacketmagazine.com/10/cadd-bunt.html
I like his adage about poetry which applies to all Art "Never explain." Benjamin Jowett would have added, to make it more general, "Never apologise and never make the same mistake again."
Poets and artists were seen as disreputable and most of them lived up to expectations. The Chairman's reaction would not have been uncommon. The poets would say that people who lived tightly-controlled, well-ordered lives felt threatened by the freedom of existentialism, its disregard for propriety, its anarchy. The Chairman would say that he was defending his principles: his work ethic, his respect for people who laboured to support their families and hold society together. The poem reflects how polarised society was then with respect to work and art.
This was about the time of Jean-Paul Sartre and the existentialists, the tenet that every human being was endowed with unlimited freedom - and such ideas seemed alarming and dangerous to those with traditional values. The most important thing to remember about Sartre is that he never wore a black sweater and beret. He dressed smartly in normal clothing of his day.
Now I'm reminded of a film with Tony Hancock called The Rebel. He works in a city office, going work in a pin-stripe suit, bowler hat and umbrella. But he's a rebel: he hangs his umbrella with the handle pointing to the left whereas the other clerks hang theirs pointing to the right. He escapes from London life, goes to Paris and becomes an artist. In the next scene with his artist friends, he's telling them how everybody in London goes to work in a uniform, they're all slaves to convention in their black bowler hats, pin-stripe suits and umbrellas - and they're all laughing. But, as he is talking, the camera pulls back and pans around the room - and everybody is wearing a black rollneck sweater and a black beret.
There are plenty of pictures of Basil as an old codger, but I could only find one of him as a younger man, in the 1930's. He was a friend of Ezra Pound at that time and Pound's influence can be seen in his work.
Basil was a celebrated reader with a distinctive style. He sounds very much like Ezra Pound. Many of his readings survive. I swear I didn't listen to him beforehand - that's never a good idea:
poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=7501
Poetry? It's a hobby.
I run model trains.
Mr Shaw there breeds pigeons.
It's not work. You don't sweat.
Nobody pays for it.
You could advertise soap.
Art, that's opera; or repertory—
The Desert Song.
Nancy was in the chorus.
But to ask for twelve pounds a week—
married, aren't you?—
you've got a nerve.
How could I look a bus conductor
in the face
if I paid you twelve pounds?
Who says it's poetry, anyhow?
My ten year old
can do it and rhyme.
I get three thousand and expenses,
a car, vouchers,
but I'm an accountant.
They do what I tell them,
my company.
What do you do?
Nasty little words, nasty long words,
it's unhealthy.
I want to wash when I meet a poet.
They're Reds, addicts,
all delinquents.
What you write is rot.
Mr Hines says so, and he's a schoolteacher,
he ought to know.
Go and find work.
