A PLACEMENT. 1983.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
11.6 x 7.6cm , 10pp (single folded sheet printed on one side only) brown on white artist’s card with two photographs by Andrew Griffiths of a tree that had recently been planted and another a fully grown – both have tree-column sculptures at their bases. The poem in the middle section reads:
A PLACEMENT
obeisance
and an excerpt from Finlay’s “Detached Sentences on Gardening” which clarifies the idea that some items in a garden are like those of societies – some need to be fixed (in the sense of solidified) so that others can be placed (strategic decision-making).
The final section notes the Tree Column-Bases to be found in Little Sparta – one “Lycurge” and the other Saint-Just. The former was a Greek law-maker and the latter the stern deliverer of laws from the French Revolution. Finlay differentiates between the two by suggesting the Greek was more stable and civil while the latter more chaotic and dangerous. VG+.