25 Apr POSTER/POEM (LE CIRCUS!!) 1964. THE FOURTH EVER PRINT FROM THE WILD HAWTHORN PRESS.
Edinburgh: Wild Hawthorn Press 1964
43.2 × 56cm, blue, orange and black silkscreen on paper. One of the earliest and also most important of poster poems by Finlay. A concrete poem and word landscape.
le circus!! is presumably the name of the boat which is equipped with a green and a red blinker on each side. It has the number K47.
The ship is fully manned but also has corks, nets and the usual fishing tools.
There is a phrase which says "they leap BARE-BACK through the rainbow's hoop" - which one might presume refers to fish but it seems also to be applicable to the boat.
The whole paints a picture in words but also from the layout of the sections one can see how the various elements relate to each other in this snapshot of a fishing trip. But the whole scene is also an entertainment such as one might find in the circus with some of the language used reminding the reader of horses and horsemanship.
An extremely difficult to find print this example has pin holes and some stains in margins. Some prints were sometimes pinned up on walls during poetry readings and then recovered for reuse later - this is one such print. Murray has this as 5.4.
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