Jonathan Williams - Unoriginal Sins

24 Jun STRAWBERRY HILL IN 5 VISUAL POEMS. 1986.

Posted at 15:12h in Prints + Posters

Minneapolis : Phil Gallo at the Hermetic Press, 1986 28 x 40cm, yellow printed folder in the form of an envelope content of 5 "visual poems" on various papers:
1) A Discrete Sign on the Steinway., by Jonathan Williams. One of 130 copies.
2) My Lipstick.from His Lips.To Your Teeth, by Phil Gallo, edition limited to 100 copies.
3) EMPO POEM, by Karl Kempton, edition limited to 100 copies
4) Language, by Scott Helmes, edition limited to 100 copies
and Finlay's contribution:
5) Strawberry Hill "Precipices, Mountains.," by Ian Hamilton Finlay, edition limited to 140 copies. 35.5 x 17cm, 1pp. The print is a letterpress on deckled paper - which quotes Horace Walpole on his intent to create a "little Gothic Castle at Strawberry Hill". Below that quotation is a further quotation from Walpole (the son of the then British Prime Minister) describing the environment on Strawberry Hill namely "Precipices, mountains, torrents, wolves, rumblings" and the below that a final pairing of "Wild cats, Corsairs...

19 Sep THE MAGPIE’S BAGPIPE. 1982

Posted at 16:55h in Monographs & Essays

San Francisco North Point Press, 1982
22.5 x 15cm, 186pp plus card covers. First edition of this Jonathan Williams' selected essays on poet which include Charles Olson, Mina Loy, Lorine Neidecker, Bucky Fuller, Lyle Borge, Aaron Siskind and Ian Hamilton Finlay "Being a wee introduction to the Scot's Poet". VG+.

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15 Oct POTH (POOR OLD TIRED HORSE) NR 25 ONE WORD POEMS. 1967.

Posted at 16:35h in Poor Old Tired Horse + Broadsides

Stoneypath; Wild Hawthorne Press, 1967
26 x 21cm, 8pp. The final number of Finlay’s poetry publication. Design and calligraphy by Jim Nicholson. Contributions from Ronald Johnson, Edwin Morgan, George Mackay Brown, Eli Siegel, Jerome Rothenberg, Alkman (translated by Guy Davenport), Hugh Creighton Hill, Stuart Mills, Pedro Xista, Alan Riddell, Martin Seymour-Smith, Kenelm Cox, Giles Gordon, Douglas Young, Edward Lucie-Smith, Stephen Bann, Dick Sheeler, Astrid Gillis, Oswald de Andrade, Ernst Jandl, Gael Turnbull, Aram Saroyan, Jonathan Williams and Ian Hamilton Finlay. VG+.
Finlay whilst not inventing the One Word Poem format certainly helped popularise it - he uses the format in a number of his artist's books. The last poems in this publication are by Finlay and include some of his best known works reformatted in to such a form.

A SEE-SAW
_________
SEA

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20 Mar POTH (POOR OLD TIRED HORSE) NR 16. STICKS STONES NAMES BONES. 1965.

Posted at 13:55h in Poor Old Tired Horse + Broadsides

Ardgay, Ross-shire; Wild Hawthorne Press, 1965
26 x 21cm, 8pp. The sixteenth number of Finlay’s poetry publication with contributions by Pierre Albert-Birot (translated by Barbara Wright), Enrique Uribe, Francis Ponge (translated by D.M. Black), Ernst Jandl, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Eli Siegel, Tristan Tzara (translated by John Adlard), Herman Hesse (translated by Lesley Lendrum), Barry Cole, Jonathan Williams, Edward Wright and Spike Hawkins. The entire number was designed by hand with woodcuts and hand-written typography by Edward Wright. VG+ condition Scarce.

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15 Aug POTH (POOR OLD TIRED HORSE) NR 8. 1963. WITH ONE OF FINLAY’S EARLIEST CONCRETE POEMS.

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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03 Feb POTH (POOR OLD TIRED HORSE) NR 3. 1962.

Posted at 09:29h in Poor Old Tired Horse + Broadsides

Edinburgh; Wild Hawthorne Press, 1962
30 x 21cm, 4pp. The third number of Finlay’s poetry publication with contributions by Robert Garioch, Jonathan Williams, Guillaume Apollinaire (translated by Dave Ball), César Lopez Nunez (translated by Jim Haynes); Larry Eigner, R. Crombie Saunders, Libby Houston, Edwin Morgan; Giacomo Leopardi (translated by Edwin Morgan); and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. As usual bits of Scots find themselves near more modern American poems. This is an extremely hard to find early number of this international review - hardly any exist on the open market. This example has been folded once for storage but is overall VG.

Batterday comes roun at last,
tairget of the five-day week,
jist in time to dip your wick;
whitna wey of life is this?

Robert Garioch: Scunner.

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