Wednesday, April 19, 2023

Bunting: ‘Chomei at Toyama’

 I don’t know whether Basil Bunting was one of the great poets or one the great eccentrics of the 20th century. But I love his “Chomei at Toyama.”

Chomei, who was born in 1154, abandoned life in the big city and built a hut on a mountain where he lived as a hermit. He wrote a prose account.

Bunting translated as Pound did. So to say it’s “loose” probably doesn’t cover it.

Chomei describes terrible times: natural disasters and gangsters on the streets and in government. He gives up and builds his tiny house.

I have filled the frames with clay, 

set hinges at the corners; 

easy to take it down and carry it away 

when I get bored with this place. 

Two barrowloads of junk 

and the cost of a man to shove the barrow, 

no trouble at all.

He outlines a life worthy of Thoreau at Walden. He goes to the summit of the mountain and looks out over Kyoto:

a very economical way of enjoying yourself.

He has his books and mandolin. The gamekeeper’s son, 16, comes by for company.

He came planning to stay a month. Five years later, moss grows on the roof.

I know myself and mankind. 

• Source: The poem is here:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/20166/chomei-at-toyama

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