Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
7.3 x 7.3cm, 4pp, printed black on blue. A drawing of a cherry stone being flicked away by a finger is on the front. On the back Finlay notes that the German flying bombs, FZG 76, V-1 or doodle bugs were codenamed "Kirschkern" - which means cherry stone. These were rocket propelled and once launched there was no control of the missile - much as one find a flicked cherry stone when sent away in such manner. VG+
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999.
29.5 x 14cm, 12pp plus cards and printed dust jacket. Artist's book with a poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and it's English translation by Samuel Taylor Coleridge which have linocut illustrations by Jo Hincks and then a variant on the poem by Finlay where the original poem's landscape is replaced by a scene of boats (which are blue lemons):
Do you know the land where the blue lemons ride
A silver fountain springs from the vessel's side?
There, in the stern, the orange net-floats glow,
The brown sail shifts, the salt winds gently blow.
DO you know it well, that land, beloved friend?
"Thither with thee, O, thither would I wend!"
The poem also is a thought of death and heaven. FInlay's version is also illustrated by Hincks - making the boat references more obvious (the fountain for example is the bilge water spraying out)>
VG+ example.
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
11.8 x 7.1cm, 4pp, printed black on brown. Finlay's poem reads:
4 Sails
Two Nile sails, two silent
turtle-doves.
Dream sail denied to thumb and
forefinger.
The down-at-heel sail of the
last Galway Hooker.
The Last Galway Hooker is a poem by Richard Murphy which tells the tale of a failing fishing boat and its path to restoration which en passant becomes retelling of the story of modern Irish history.
VG+.
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn, n.d. (1999?)
6.5 x 5.2cm, 4pp very small artist's card with a text:
POEMS
Things can
go wrong -
The lines,
the colours
Finlay compares creating a poem with all its problems with that of painting.
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
9.9 x 26cm, 2pp, a colour photograph of the fields around Little Sparta by Pia Maria Simig. The image is overlaid with the title "THE FLUTED LAND" which comes originally from German literature (which Pia would know well). The quotation refers to the undulation of the fields, the ploughing of the earth but also to the music Pan would play in a mythical arcadian land. VG+.
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
6.2 x 19.7cm, 4pp, black on white card with light blue and green abstract drawing by Stephen Duncalf. Internally Finlay has the words "WESTERN APPROACHES"
The drawing seems to be of a highly abstract side of a battleship painted in the dazzle style which was a form of camouflage during the battle of the Atlantic. Such ships would sail east to west as escorts - approaching Britain with conveys bringing supplies. VG+
...
Magdeburg: Bundesgartenschau/Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
18.5 x 17.8 (folded size), gate-fold artist's card (with double fold sides) with a drawing of a sheep's fold by Laurie Clark printed brown on light beige card stock. A proposal for a former military training ground in Germany, Finlay proposes a stone built old fashioned shipfold with gate that visitors are welcome to enter. On the stone is a title of a Salmuel Palmer etching "Folding the last sheep" (a text used by both Finlay and more often by Thomas A. Clark) and on the gate are the carved words :SHepherd's song"). The text is also found in German on the card. This is both artist's card and proposal but we have placed it (as has the Press) in the latter category). VG+.
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
6.5 x 7.5cm, 4pp, black on grey card with a text:
Emblem
"Tallies - slips bearing the names of fishing boats and placed on top of their boxed catch - are all mechanically printed, except one to which the name has been added in an unselfconscious hand." then there is a box with a reproduced handwritten name "PLOUGH" in it. Below is
Luke 9:62.
Finlay has quoted that biblical passage before - it means to be optimistic and not look back. The handwritten tally may indicate that someone could not afford printing but it is left "unsubconscious"ly amidst the more expensive tallies. Additionally the name Plough reminds one of the Christian metaphor of fishing for men but with Finlay's often equivalence of farming the land and the sea. VG+.
...
N.p.: n.p., 1999
30 x 21cm, 1pp exhibition handout for a show of photographs of Little Sparta by Dave Paterson. Formerly folded for storage else VG+.
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
9.5 x 15cm, 4pp, black on brown card with a text:
Emblem
A boat carrying a much-patched sail, the patches of varied sizes, shapes and colours. The blade of the rudder, where it is visible is also patched."
Variety in unity.
Finlay enjoys the way something is constructed in components to make the whole more than the sum of the parts. VG+.
...
Eindhoven: October, 1999
20 x 55cm, full colour offset-lithograph with a reproduced painting by Janet Boulton of a bramble branch. Peter Foolen notes: "This beautiful watercolour is in contrast with the painful thorns of the bramble branch which resembles the long poles with hooks used to catch tunny (the boat used to fish tunny is named Thonier)". One of 125 unsigned copies. VG+.
This work was given by Finlay to Paul Robertson as a gestural gift during a visit to Little Sparta when the poet asked Robertson to proofread a small pamphlet by Finlay that had been translated into English by Finlay's assistant.
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
9.5 x 15cm, 4pp, black on blue card with a text:
Emblem
After the bow, (a very long way after) and after the mast and the tabernacle, and the hatch, and the wheelhouse, and the thwart, and the sternpost, comes finally the rudder, which (all else being in order), gives direction to the boat."
First and last
The rudder is both first and last - first because of its importance to the boat's passage, and last physically. VG+.
...