18 Mar

Posted at 14:04h in Artist's Books

Edinburgh: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1964
15 x 20cm, 32pp. Original wrappers and typographic dustjacket. The first of a number of artist's books using the "Canal Stripe" title (there presumably were others that were not published given the first is number 3. Each of the first eleven pages have one word printed on them - the first four words are hayboat, cathedral, housemill, windstack and then followed by haymill, cathedral, housestack, windboat, and then, haystack, cathedral, houseboat. A final double page has haystack, cathedral, houseboat, windmill.
The first thing to note is the placing of the words on the page are in a continuous line much like a straight canal waterway. The one word that does not change is Cathedral - a large land based landmark - but the other three works are constructed by moving the prefixes "hay", "house" and wind" around in front of the word endings "stack", "boat" and "mill".
The word change creates new hybrid scenes - the houseboat passes the housemill and cathedral, the boat becomes a windboat in a second scene and so on. Finlay uses this trick often in poetry and concrete works - the slightest change to a letter or a word entirely changes the meaning of the text. The signifier to signified relationship is disrupted by the most minor of alterations.

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01 Jan

Posted at 13:14h in Poor Old Tired Horse + Broadsides

Edinburgh; Wild Hawthorne Press, 1964
26 x 21cm, 4pp. The eleventh number of Finlay’s poetry publication with each page a reproduced design by John Picking. POTH was here printed for the first time in two colours - blue and yellow. This number is designated as the "Lollipop Number" - and the shape of a lollipop is a re-occurring motif in the drawings. The contributions are by Apollinaire, J.F. Hendry, Horace, Renzo Laurano, Ann McGarrell, Christian Morgenstern, John Picking, Michael Shayer, Kurt Sigel and Robert Simmons.
INSERTED:
OPENINGS.
2 x 15cm, 4pp. Folded single sheet. Promotional leaflet for John Furnival's Openings Press with contact details being for Furnival but also Dom Pierre Houedard (dsh). VG.

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15 Nov

Posted at 11:43h in Poor Old Tired Horse + Broadsides

Edinburgh; Wild Hawthorne Press, 1963
26 x 21cm, 4pp. The ninth tenth of Finlay’s poetry publication with contributions by Robert Frame, Finlay himself, Eugene Gomringer, Anselan Hollo, Dom Sylvester Houedard, Robert Lax and Edwin Morgan. This number was printed in part red on white and was designated by Finlay as "the Concrete number" and all the poems included can be regarded as such. There is an abstract illustration by Robert Frame as an insert (printed b/w).
ALSO INSERTED:
FROM BURGOS JAIL.
29.5 x 19.5cm, 1pp. Folded. Promotional leaflet printed green and black on white published by Appeal for Amnesty in Spain: for a poetry book protesting fascist political prisoners under Franco.
This was the first issue to break with the previous size format - thereafter while most numbers were 26 x 21cm, some were smaller or even oblong. New printing techniques were being used also - the earliest numbers of POTH were laid up using pretty much only type - these slightly later numbers were pasted up and some typesetting also used (which allowed more flexibility in design and made reproducing visual and concrete works more easy (and accurate).
*********
One poem by Morgan on the back page was mistakenly corrected by the printer (Gaol was corrected to Goal) so each copy was hand altered to indicate the correct format - it should have been thus:

BRAZILIAN "FOOTBALL"
1958 - Goal! Goal! Goal!
1962 - Goal! Goal! Goal!
1964 - Gaol! Gaol! Gaol!

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15 Sep

Posted at 11:31h in Poor Old Tired Horse + Broadsides

Edinburgh; Wild Hawthorne Press, 1963
30 x 21cm, 4pp. The ninth number of Finlay’s poetry publication with contributions by Paul Fort (translated by Nicole Rabetaud), Lorine Niedecker, Ronald Johnson, Rocco Scotellaro (translated by Cid Corman), Libby Houston; John Gray, and Paulo Marcos de Andrade (translated by Augusto de Campos). The inner double spread is based on Ronal Johnson's Sports and Divertissments - which Finlay later published as a stand alone book. The "decorations" herein (reproduced woodcuts) were by Peter Stitt. None of the poems in this issue might be clearly regarded as "concrete".
INSERTED
The "spring list" of books and other items available from the Wild Hawthorn Press. 19 x 29cm, 1pp. Folded.

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15 Aug

Posted at 11:18h in Poor Old Tired Horse + Broadsides

Edinburgh; Wild Hawthorne Press, 1963
30 x 21cm, 4pp. The eighth number of Finlay’s poetry publication with contributions by Ian Hamilton Finlay, Peter Stitt, Yury Pankratov (translated by Edwin Morgan), Andrei Voznesensky (translated by Edwin Morgan and Anselm Hollo), El Lissitsky, A. Khlebnikov (translated by J.F. Hendry and Edwin Morgan), Spike Hawkins, Jonathan Williams, Alexander Tvardovskii (translated by J.F. Hendry), and Mary Ellen Solt.
This was the first number of POTH to publish Finlay's own concrete poems - the work is Homage to Malevich - where a text block made up of combinations of the words LACK BLOCK and BLACK create a rectangle which is reflected in a drawing below (by Peter Stitt from Finlay's instructions). This work is published in other books by Finlay including Rapel. A significant section of the pages in this number are dedicated to Russian avant garde writers - mostly translated in part by Edwin Morgan and the number is dedicated to the memory of those writers including Malevich.

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11 Jul

Posted at 10:33h in Letters + Documents

A typed letter signed by Finlay to his friend Fred Hunter (dated July 11th [1963]) on two sheets of light typing paper - each 12.7 x 20.2cm, 1pp. There are approximately 353 words, with one holograph correction. Finlay writes: “I also enclose a catalogue Jessie [McGuffie] and I made, for the gallery Jessie was to run here; unfortunately, the nasty posh lady who owned the gallery, objected to some of the people who were invited to the opening, and there was an argument, and Jessie got sacked, whereupon the artist withdrew his paintings, so there never WAS an exhibition.” Elsewhere, Finlay thanks Hunter “for the pound… the Wild Hawthorn is certainly always glad of money”; mentions Fish-Sheet (“I hope to do it, at irregular intervals”), and informs that “Next Poth will be 8”. Other chat refers to Hunter having bought “the concretes of [sic] A D'Offay; I just hope it wasn’t a disappointment for you; it worries me”, and a promise to dig out back issues of Migrant for him that “are shut away in a teachest, in a friend’s house”. This letter was sent by Finlay along with the handout for the Patriot Gallery (which has a separate listing in this collection) which is the exhibition by Stitt he refers to in this letter. "I also enclose a catalogue Jessie and I made, for the gallery Jessie was to run here, unfortunately, the nasty posh lady who owned the gallery, objected to some of the people who were invited to the opening, and there was an argument, and Jessie got sacked, whereupon the artist withdrew his paintings, so there never WAS an exhibition. However the artist gave us three prints of his etching, Bird descending, and I thought you might like to have one as a little present so here it it. P Stitt has much nicer things but he will certainly be famous one day, so the etching will be good to have...

18 Jun

Posted at 15:57h in Wild Hawthorn Press

Edinburgh: WIld Hawthorn Press, 1963
15 x 20.5Ccm, 20pp. Original wrappers that wrap around. A poetry book with 10 verses by Turnbull - with linocuts by Alexander McNeish. This was the fourth book published by The Wild Hawthorn Press. VG+. Murray 1.4.

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06 Jun

Posted at 13:47h in Poor Old Tired Horse + Broadsides

Edinburgh: Partisan Gallery, 1963 23.7 x 36cm, 1pp, broadside and gallery handout for an exhibition of work by Peter Stitt, printing an original poem each by Ian Hamilton Finlay ("20 - a PS")and Jerome Rothenberg ("Call it Heaven). This is a very early Finlay contribution where he designed the broadside for a gallery that was released for an exhibition of works by Stitt and that was curated by Finlay's then wife Jessie McGuffie (but the opening caused a rift between the gallery owner and McGuffie as the latter had invited some guests who the owner thought crude.) The artist then withdrew his paintings and the show was cancelled. Lists the works exhibited by Stitt, one of which was lent by Finlay. Stitt was subsequently featured by Finlay in Poor Old Tired Horse issues #8 and #9, after which he moved to London. The Finlay poem is one of the very first that can be clearly identified as a concrete poem, it is a typescript where each work or small phrase is linked by lines to create relationships between the words and their positioning on the page and relative to each other. This is an extremely rare and important publication which has a very similar design style to Fish Sheet One but was never widely distributed because of the falling out between McGuffie, Finlay "and the posh lady who owned the gallery" (from a TLS to be found elsewhere in this collection that was sent along with this catalogue). Folded twice for mailing. VG+. ...

15 May

Posted at 11:03h in Poor Old Tired Horse + Broadsides

Edinburgh; Wild Hawthorne Press, 1963
30 x 21cm, 4pp + 1pp insert. The seventh number of Finlay’s poetry publication with contributions by Kurt Schwitters (translated by Lesley Lendrum), Paul Celan (translated by Helmut Bonheim), Robert Creeley, Piero Heliczer, Mario Trufelli (translated by Cid Corman); Andrei Voznesensky (translated by Edwin Morgan), Crombie Saunders, Paul Blackburn, Richard Huelsenbeck (translated by Jerome Rothenberg), Robert Simmons, Hamish McLaren, Bud Neill, Fernano Lemos, and Alexander McNeish. This is a very hard to find early number of this international review - hardly any exist on the open market. This example is VG. BR> The inserted sheet has three images in b/w by Bud Neill and Alexander McNeish as well as the work Drawing by Ferando Lemos which is clearly a visual poem and continues the introduction of such work to the POTH series. Thereafter this number almost all following issues were primarily concerned with such formats rather than traditional poetry structures. BR>...

16 Apr

Posted at 20:59h in Miscellany

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1963)
29.4 x 20.4cm, 1pp offset lithographic price list for the Press. Mentions the early publications from the Press and some such as Jonathan William's Lullabies Twisters Gibbers Drags which the Press was the distributor for in the UK. Former fold else VG+....

10 Apr

Posted at 18:43h in Page Works & Contributions

Paris: Approchest, n.d. (1963)
20.5 x 13cm, 130pp plus original wrappers. A single number of a poetry journal edited by Julian Blaine and Jean-Francois Bory. The editors were aware of the growing changes in experimental poetry and here one finds Pierre Garnier, Jeff Nuttall, John Furnival, de Campos, de Vree, Blaine and Bory alongside Finlay's BROKEN HEART which can be found in Rapel.
The spine and wrappers here are attached but with tears - a bit fragile but a rare early Finlay international contribution and a sign of his growing reputation amongst his peers. Else VG.

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18 Mar

Posted at 13:56h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1963
30 x 21cm, Soft cover. First edition. Cream card folder, front panel and flap at rear printed in black, containing only 11 loose sheets printed on one side only: dedication printed in black, 'a peach an apple' printed in blue, a valentine in green, the practice in black, formal poem in three colours, carousel in two colours. Wrappers and contents in fine condition with the exception of a slight tear on the back right fold. Exceptionally rare very early Finlay visual poetry publication.
This was the first wholly conceived "concrete" poetry book by Finlay and contains some of his best known works (which were later reprinted in anthologies and other Finlay publications as well as in different mediums such as unique glass works.

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