Edwin Morgan - Unoriginal Sins

15 May POTH (POOR OLD TIRED HORSE) NR 7. 1963. WITH PICTORAL INSERT.

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>...

02 Feb FISH-SHEET ONE. 1963

Posted at 20:57h in Wild Hawthorn Press

Edinburgh: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1963
21 x 30cm. single folded sheet printed with texts by six contributors. Unique number of this precursor to Finlay's revue Poor Old Tired Horse. Issued in broadside format, Fish Sheet One is composed of quasi-concrete poetic experiments by Pete Brown, Spike Hawkins, J.F. Hendry, Anselm Hollo, Edwin Morgan and Finlay. Folded as issued. A very good+ example of this early and quite elusive production of the press. Ref.: Murray 1.3.

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15 May POTH (POOR OLD TIRED HORSE) NR 6. 1963. THE FIRST NUMBER OF POTH WITH A CONCRETE/VISUAL POEM.

Posted at 10:49h in Poor Old Tired Horse + Broadsides

Edinburgh; Wild Hawthorne Press, 1963
30 x 21cm, 4pp. The sixth number of Finlay’s monthly poetry publication with contributions by Bernard Kops, Larry Eigner, J.F. Hendry, Attila Jozsef (translated by J.F. Hendry and Edwin Morgan), Louis Zukofsky, Mary Ellen Solt, Günter Grass (translated by Jerome Rothenberg), Michael Shayer, Spike Hawkins, Marcelo Moura, Pedro Xista, and Augusto de Campos. This example is overall VG if slightly browned. Copies were sold for 9d each and were sometimes taken around University unions and departments or sold at poetry / literature evenings as well as by subscription.
Importantly this was the first number of POTH that contains a work that is clearly identifiable as a concrete or visual poem - the back cover has three works by Marcelo Moura, Pedro Xista, Augusto de Campos which Finlay notes are "Concrete Poems from Brazil". It appears it was the South American poets who first gained Finlay's attention and led him to primarily work in the milieu.
Some copies of POTH Nr 6 have a printed slip inserted announcing that "From now on, P.O.T.H. will contain graphic art as well as poetry" - although this copy does not have that slip - but that is a further indication that this was a pivotal number of the journal.

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01 Jan POTH NR 1. (POOR. OLD. TIRED. HORSE.) 1962.

Posted at 15:54h in Poor Old Tired Horse + Broadsides

Edinburgh; Wild Hawthorne Press, 1962
30 x 21cm, 4pp. The first number of Finlay’s international poetry publication (edited by J. McGuffie and P. Pond) with contributions by Pete Brown, Edwin Morgan, Alan Riddell, Anslem Hollo, Gael Turnbull, Lorine Niedecker and one short poem by Finlay himself.
The poems in this first number of the journal are pretty much standard format although there are two sound poems by Pete Brown. Edwin Morgan translates a 19th century poem by Fyodor Tyutchev. Anselm Hollo has a long poem called Orbit which takes space exploration as its theme and Finlay's first POTH published poem is "Another Huge Poem for Hughie" - and it reads like an inside joke and I cannot understand it other than the joke that the "hugeness" of the poem consists of 21 words. VG condition. This is an uber-rare item - hardly any exist on the open market.

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