Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
12.7 x 13.9cm, 1pp full colour reproduction of a painting of one of Finlay's toy boats by Janey Boulton. On the reverse is a Finlay "definition" poem -
SPARROW, n. a plain brown bird of the finch family.
The card is a visual poem with the painting having similar colourings to the bird and it seems likely that the model is also somewhat small.
VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
9.9 x 13.9cm, 1pp black on blue card with the epigram:
All that we did not want to catch, we kept, and all that we wanted to take home we throw over the side
The card reflects a then current political dispute about conservation of fish - the European Community forcing fishermen to take account of their actions when over-fishing which of course was unpopular amongst the working fleet. The original epigram apparently referred to lice (All that we caught we left behind, and all that we did not catch we carry home" from the Epigrams of Homer. Finlay spins this with some mis-placed sympathy for the modern fisherman. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
9.5 x 16cm, 1pp black on white card with a photograph of Loch Echen at Little Sparta.
THE AERONAUT PRINZ EUGEN
sank
somewhere
here
An effigy
now
of itself
Prinz Eugene was the German Battle Cruiser from the second world war and was scuttled after the war remaining partly emerged. FInlay's poem seems to remember a crashed model (and its occupant) named after the real boat which one presumes ended up in the Loch (actually a large pool).
VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
8.4 x 12.6cm, 4pp black on white folding card with the drawing by Gary Hincks of a second world war bomber with a woman as "nose art". The poem internally reads:
1943
Lovely ladies lolling in lingerie
on the noses of B17's. (sic)
The alliterative first line brings to mind real seductresses and the second clearly places the reality of the second world war habit of having female images painted on the front of the bomber planes.
VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
9 x 11 cm, 4pp black on white folding card. The poem internally reads:
Her handwriting spring water.
(Her words, river-washes pebbles).
The flowing hand-writing is compared with the importance of the lover's words. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 2000
7 x 12.6cm, 4pp artist's card with a landscape drawing by Kathleen Lindsley. Internally there is a definition work by Finlay:
(Classical) landscape, n. a stand of concepts.
Finlay's definition is aware of the long traditions and ideas behind both landscape gardening and the painting of such scenes. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
11 x 11 cm, 4pp black on white folding card. The poem internally reads:
VILLAGE
red houses.
yellow houses
blue houses
greenhouses
Gabriele Münter was a female German expressionist painter from the turn of the 20th century. Her work often showed rural landscapes including villages with the colours being bright (like Fauvism). Finlay's poem listing these bright buildings ends humorously with the pun of "greenhouses". VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
10.6 x 11.3cm, 4pp outer folder in grey with tipped in inner 4pp sheet. A text printed in a outline font reads:
A FRAYED EDG
A WORN EDG
A FAINT EDG
A WARPED EDG
The E in each word EDGE is missing to create the visual counterpart of the text. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
10.6 x 11.3cm, 4pp outer folder in grey with tipped on inner brown paper with a text printed in reverse. Read the correct way round it would read:
LETTERS AND NUMBERS
SEEN IN REVERSE
THROUGH A SAIL
The text directly references its own format - the reader is forced to read "through" the "brown sail". VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
14.4 x 15.4cm, 4pp outer folder in grey with tipped on 14 x 45cm (opened out) white paper with the text in outline font:
SOME FLAKES OF SNOW STIRRED
BY THE WING OF A PIGEON
The poem is a winter scene. The white tips and flecks of a pigeon's wings are compared with the falling flakes of snow. VG+>
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
10.6 x 11.3cm, 4pp outer folder in grey with tipped on 9.5 x 44cm opened out, 8pp concertina folded, white paper with the four panels of texts in outline font:
PART OF A PLANK
OVER
PART OF A PLANK
EDGE TO EDGE
PLANK TO A PLANK
END TO END
ABUTTING
STEM TO STERN
The panels firstly describe three methods of ship building where different ways of laying the wood is used. The final panel encompasses the entire boat from front to back.
One is reminded, although the comparison is probably just coincidence, of Lawrence Weiner's conceptual art works where all physical options of interrelations between things are listed to create conceptual sculptures. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
7.2 x 8cm, 4pp. Artist's card printed red on light yellow with an abstract drawing by Gary Hincks on the front that looks like a close up of sackcloth .
Internally there is a translation of two lines from a fragment from Archilochus the Greek poet:
The deep red-brown
of rain-wet sailcloth
The poem is reflected in the drawing. VG+.
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