The Death of Piety

8/9/2019 The Death of Piety

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The Death of PietyIan Hamilton Finlay

in conversation with Nagy Rashwan

.

Landscape artist, poet, sculptor, and painter Ian Hamilton Finlay was orn in !"#$ in Nassau,%ahamas, and returned to &cotland as a child' (fter a childhood in)ected y poverty in *lasgow heleft school at thirteen with the outrea+ of war when he was evacuated to the r+neys' Later heserved in the army and saw service in *ermany' He started his artistic career in conventional poetryand short story formats in his oo+s The Sea Bed and Other Stories-!"$./, The Dancers Inherit theParty-!"01/, and Glasgow Beasts-!"0#/' (lthough his early wor+ was admired in (merica y suchpoets as Roert 2reeley, Roert Duncan and Lorine Niedec+er, it was not well received in &cotland'His pioneer contriution to the international 2oncrete Poetry 3ovement in the !"01s, in such wor+sas Rapel-!"04/ and Canal Strip 3and 4-!"05/, has earned him the title 6&cotland7s greatestconcrete poet7' From the late !"01s to the present, Finlay7s art, has re8invented itself in the wholethree8dimensional veral 9 visual world of architectural installations, paintings, poster poems, andstone hewn pieces' He has produced an enormous amount of wor+ e:hiited around the world from

the Tate *allery to the ;ric Fare *allery in Paris'%ut he is est +nown for his transformation of his farmhouse at Lanar+, near >dinurgh, &cotland,which he started in !"00' The estate is a miniature 6repulic7 of symolic sculptures, temples, andconceptual artistic pieces woven into the faric of his garden7s )owers and water' Finlay named it6Little &parta7'>:perimenting in the realms of the composite artistic forms and materials, Finlay7s art enacts aprocess of multi8layered aesthetic symolisation of history and mythology, of nature and culture? aprocess of collaoration and search for ever more artistic possiilities emodying his contemplativemoral and aesthetic re)ections' It is not a @uestion of generic identity and te:tual or conte:tualingenuity that stimulates one7s curiosity and draws one7s attention to Finlay7s wor+' Nor is it a@uestion of ideals, re)ecting upon the perfectionist, almost romantic, conclusions he draws aout hisculture7s increasing 6seculariAation7 and la+e of piety' For me, the strength of his wor+7s particularitylies in its e:traordinary aility to interrogate fundamental concepts of artistic articulation whileproving itself oth politically and culturally B neither classical nor traditional as Finlay himselfdeclares B ut oth &ulime, and decidedly contemporary'


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IanHamiltonFinlay

PosterpoemC(croatsE

ithin the realm of transcendent values and thoughts, Finlay7s aesthetic articulates a criticaldistance of philosophical contemplation and re)ections, and within the realm of history andmythology his artistic compositions diminish allusionist and metaphoric distances etweenreferences and symolic connotations' In oth, the presence and the asence of particular astractdistances, Finlay7s aesthetic invents its own reality and its own realism'Indeed, his rea+ with the discursive linear poetry in his Grst collection of concretepoetryRapel-!"04/ was followed y another shift from concrete poetry7s paginated limits into thewider horiAons of the land, the sea, and the literally structured word' Finlay7s wor+ re)ects thosemoments of hidden ut estalished individuality which articulates postmodernity7s concern forundermining what one (merican poet terms 6the fallacy of the poetic I7 Note !, and what Finlayhimself calls poetic 6self8e:tensions7'Note # His aesthetic seems more a+in to that 3ulti8media,inter8discoursial spirit we so often associate with post8modern sensiility than to the classicalcultural idioms and a:ioms that he so readily feels inhaiting'&uch is the status of 6a composer7 B as he himself comments B to whom materials of composition is6neither here nor there7, and to whom the purpose of composition is always to create the eautiful'This interview too+ place in Finlay7s house? Little &parta -&tonypath/, Dunsyre, Lanar+, &cotland, on(pril !#th, !""0'Nagy Rashwan

Nagy Rashwan:Perhaps I can start y as+ing youC How would you deGne your presentrelationship with 2oncrete Poetry nowJFinlay:(s a friendly one' I would still li+e to write concrete poems, ut I can only do it sometimes'For me concrete poetry was a particular way of using language which came out of a particularfeeling , and I don7t have control over whether this feeling is in me or not' %ut if it is in me, I am veryhappy to write concrete poetry' I don7t feel it is in any way over for me' %ut I can only write what themuse allows me to write' I cannot choose, I can only do what I am given, and I feel pleased when Ifeel close to concrete poetry B still'(t a speciGc stage of your career, say from the early si:ties till the early seventies, youwere almost completely identiGed as a concrete poet' as concrete poetry Kust oneartistic possiility that you felt to e availale thenJIt was never for me an academic @uestion' I Kust had this curious e:perience that I couldn7t any

longer continue with the way I had een writing' I felt great prolems aout how to put wordstogether in the simplest way' (t that time I made little toys out of cardoard and wood B verysimple ones' I really wanted to write concrete poetry ut I didn7t +now what it was B I had never
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heard of it' Latter when I saw an anthology of %raAilian concrete poetry I was very surprised ecauseit was Kust what I had een tal+ing aout B and there it was' This was a conGrming e:perience' (tthat time I was completely engrossed in concrete poetry, and I suppose I didn7t approve of peoplewriting poetry that was not concrete' %ut of course concrete poetry was much disapproved of B youwere much criticised for doing it' (lso many people thought they were writing concrete poetry whenthey weren7t really writing concrete poetry' 2oncrete poetry came out of a particular +ind ofe:perience, which in some way was eing shared y dierent individuals all over the world B one ofthose ine:plicale things' However, it was somehow spoilt a it y ecoming fashionale, though it

was never accepted' In a way, ecoming fashionale spoilt it for me, I thin+'

IanHamiltonFinlay

2oncretepoemLe2ircusE

The point is that I felt that the way I had written, I couldn7t continue with any more' It was a igmystery for me B why I felt I couldn7t put the words together the way I was used to B ut I feltthere must e some other way of putting the words together, and this for me was concrete poetry BI didn7t want to do anything else and couldn7t imagine doing anything else' %ut it was never anintellectual academic @uestion for me B it was li+e an intuition? a deep feeling which was @uitestrange' I didn7t +now where it came from, or what it was B it was a longing of some sort'How aout latter development in the %raAilian concrete poetry, for instance, (ugustoDe2ampos7s 6Popcrete7 poetry, and Decio Pignatari7s and LuiA (ngelo Pinto7s &emioticpoetry JI didn7t approve of de 2ampos7s 6Popcrete7 at all B I thought it was very wic+ed' (s for Pignatari7s&emiotic wor+, I thought some of it wasn7t ad' &ome of it was @uite interesting and @uite pure But the Pop8thing, I didn7t approve of at all' I too+ moral e:ception to it? I thought it was very impure

B in a &cottish sense, I thought it was wrong'How would you descrie your poetry7s suse@uent developments, when you startedincorporating other elements in your wor+ B in the garden for e:ampleJ would youconsider this roadening of concrete poetry or would you consider it as something otherthan concrete poetryJ&ome wor+s I would do outside would e what you would consider a roadening of it, and otherwor+s derive more from the classical traditions' %ut at the eginning it was clear to me that concretepoetry was peculiarly suited for using in pulic settings' This was my idea, ut of course I neverreally much got the chance to do it' Noody was interested or there was no money or whatever' Iwould have li+ed to do it B I used to have dreams aout doing ig concrete poems' In &tuttgart I gotto do some wor+s li+e this'


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ImageC Ian Hamilton FinlayC Mnda, in Finlays garden'MndaE is Latin for waveE

Do you thin+ your sense of roadening the possiilities of your art? your sense ofincorporating architecture, for e:ample, in your wor+, might have een present thenwhen you were considered primarily to e a concrete poet who is interested in artistice:perimentsJOes, ut there are three issues involved here? Grstly, what you want to do, secondly, what the

institutions allows you to do, and Gnally what the material situation allows you to do' I mean I had nomoney' If I wanted to do a poem on glass or something, it was a ig prolem for me' There was noeasy way of my doing it B I hardly had any money, I was often hungry and so on'&o the material situation? the lac+ of Gnancial resources, along with the lac+ of support,moral or material, from the institutions of art, often hindered and conGned yourinvestigation for new artistic possiilities at that stage'Oes, that is right'2onsidering your wor+ more generally, would it e accurate to say that your vision ofcontemporary culture7s increasing secularisation and increasing loss of piety hasmotivated your return to classical referencesJOes, I thin+ we have created a culture in which there is a complete asence of piety of any +ind' (ndpiety was always an ingredient of culture' %ut, when one uses the word 6piety7 now, noody +nowswhat you mean y it' They thin+ perhaps you mean some narrow 2hristian piety or somethingdogmatic' (s a feeling, piety is almost completely asent from our culture B and I deplore thissituation' (nd this is perhaps partly responsile for my classical inclination, which may have alsoarisen ecause, when I started wor+ing with letter cutters, most of them would actually do Roman8

type letters' &o, the act of writing te:ts that suit that type of letters led me to the classical' (lso, Isuppose, the idea of harmony is implicit in the classical and is implicit in me, ut again it seems toe lost in our culture' Noody spea+s aout it any more, and it seems to me to e very important' Isuppose also I came to classicism through reading philosophy, ut I suppose the interest wasalready in me or I wouldn7t have read philosophy'


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Ian

Hamilton Finlay

Ruined 2apital in grass

&o, the classical impulse in your art has also een motivated y the 6lac+ of harmony7 inthe culture, and even in artJNot even in art, specially in art' %ut also things come into you from outside and you might not +nowwhy' I mean my grandfather was in charge of the sawmill at Hopetoun House B @uite a famous igclassical house near >dinurgh' 3y father7s sister lived in this little cottage, and my uncle was anight watchman in this ig house and, who +nows, maye my wor+ has een partially inspired ymemories of the grounds, the lands and the deer and the classical house B who +nowsJ %ut I +now

when I started the garden my inclination towards the classical was increased' %ut, of courseeverything for me has een home8made' I was never at university or anything' I was always in theoutside B so, I wor+ed things out for myself'uite a numer of critics have compared your distinction etween 6the poetry of anguishand self7 and 6the concrete as a model of order7 Note 4 with *omringer7s sense thatconcrete poetry oers a particularly orderly poetic 6play8area7 Note 5'How do yourespond to this comparison JThese concepts are of course classical formulations' I didn7t get them from the classical, I got themfrom my own self, ut I can see that they are e:pressions of a +ind of classical attitude' I mean pre8&ocratic *ree+ philosophy is never aout 6self7 at all' (s for *omringer, I thin+ he is a very nice poet,ut a very modern man' I am not a modern man, I am Kust a wee old fashioned one' I li+e*omringer7s poetry, it is very pure and the asence of humour in his wor+ is very good too Because a lot of concrete poetry was spoilt y ecoming merely witty? wit has made it very limited'ould you agree with 2harles Qenc+s that your wor+ is a 6post8modern moc+8heroicgenre Note $6'No, my wor+ is not satiric and is not moc+8heroic' This is 2harles Qenc+s descriing himself may e,

ut not me' I would never say this, such genre is completely foridden for me'Perhaps the concept of 6parody7 as deGned y Linda Hutcheon might more accuratelydescrie the classical impulse in your wor+J Note 0' Hutcheon deGnes parody as adialogue which the artist opens with the wor+s of classical anti@uity in order to redeGnethe past through the present without losing either the present7s 6newness7 or the past7s6classicity7'Oes, ut I don7t feel a distance etween me and the classical' To me it represents @uite a naturallanguage' ther languages could e natural too, ut I don7t feel outside the classical' It is clear thatmost people when they thin+ aout these things, their iggest e:perience is of a distance' I don7thave that e:perience' I have often said that Kust as the French revolution, for instance, understooditself through anti@uity, I thin+ our time can e understood through the French revolution' It is @uitea natural process to use other times to understand your own time' It oers a +ind of dramaticpossiility or something li+e that' f course our time does not try to understand itself at all,unfortunately, ut times have always understood themselves through other times which provide ameans of dramatising the issues of the present'
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Ian HamiltonFinlay

(ror Felice,

(rorPhilhellene

Do you thin+ this might e the reason why some critics Gnd your wor+ so challengingJNot only ecause of its variety of artistic genres and materials, ut also ecause of itscomple: relationship with the classicalJ Duncan *len, for e:ample, concludes that theonly way to come to terms with your wor+ is simply y accepting its 6rich amiguities7Note '6(miguous7, of course, implies disapproval, ut to me it could also mean 6complicated7' However,this is not what they mean, they mean that they disapprove of it? that it is not politically correct, thatit is unfashionale? or out with the pressure of fashion in them, or something li+e that'Does your wor+ consciously challenge 6fashionale7 artistic categoriesJNo, I don7t ma+e my wor+ in order to challenge or confuse other people7s e:pectations B I only dowhat I Gnd natural' %ut my wor+ seems dierent to these people7s e:pectations, and they never failto remind me of this dierence' I don7t +now why they Gnd it challenging' People have always foundme challenging B I don7t +now why, when I am only eing myself' I don7t understand why they Gnd

me so annoying ut they do' It is pity, ut that is how it is'Oour collaorations with other artists and craftsmen in the production of your wor+, haveled critics to raise the @uestion of their authorship and originality' &tuart 3ills, fore:ample, arguesC 6further prolems arise when he collaorates with other artists, soraising the @uestion of authorship7 Note .' How would you respond to theseoservationsJI came to these mediums through having the garden, and of course, people who have designedgardens have always wor+ed in collaoration, and never made their own inscriptions' &henstine, fore:ample, didn7t ma+e the inscriptions in his garden B he wrote the inscriptions, ut someody elsecarved them for him' Nor did 2apaility %rown also ma+e the sculptures in his gardens' &o, it is @uitenatural for me to collaorate' f course when you go out from the garden into e:hiitions suchcollaorations may not seem so natural' However , it has to e said that many famous artists todaydo collaorate, ut they don7t say so B they don7t ac+nowledge their collaorators, ut I do'Not all your collaorators have een happy ones' 2an you tell me aout your disputewith Fulcrum PressJThe dispute with Fulcrum Press was @uite iAarre' The Dancers Inherit The Party had een pulished

twice, and Fulcrum Press as+ed if they could pulish it again and, after I had signed the contract,they informed me that they intended to descrie it as a Grst edition' %ut it patently was not a Grstedition, it was a third edition' (t this point I wrote to the (rts 2ouncil of *reat %ritain ecause theygave a grant to the pulisher and I said pulic money shouldn7t e used to susidise fraudulenteditions' This is very clear and @uite simple, ut they wrote ac+ to me very rudely telling me tomind your own usiness, and things li+e that' &o, I wrote to the &cottish (rts 2ouncil, which had short8listed the second edition of the oo+ fora priAe two years efore' They told me that if London says that it is a Grst edition then it must e aGrst edition' Then I wrote to the (ssociation of Little Presses and they said something li+e? 6Oou7reselGshly spoiling a good rac+et7, ecause you get more money for the Grst editionS I found all thise:traordinaryS Then I got the parliamentary omudsman to ma+e an investigation and he consulted the %ritish3useum who conGrmed that the oo+ couldn7t e a Grst edition' %ut when they were as+ed to saythat pulicly, they refused to do so' The National Lirary of &cotland, a copyright lirary whichreceived editions of all my oo+s, also refused to say anything' It is e:traordinary that something soclear could e delierately ignored li+e this' 3y position was really @uite simple, I didn7t wish to ta+e

part in a fraud on the pulic' %ut at that time most poets either were pulished y Fulcrum, orwished to e pulished y Fulcrum, so they seemed to consider me a danger, and after si: years Iwas completely isolated' Noody spo+e to me anymore, and people were saying 6it is not nice to
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Gght7 and all this +ind of thing' &o, then, I went to the 2onsumer Protection Department which sent the oo+ to &othey7s whosee:pert on literary fraud, a man called 2arter, said that it could not e a Grst edition, too+ thepulisher to court, and got the ruling that I was right' It then too+ the (rts 2ouncil f *reat %ritain afurther two years to accept the court ruling and to apologise to me' %ut I was never forgiven, I wasalways reminded that I did something terrile' The fact that I was proven right counted for nothingat all' hat people rememered was that I had cause a lot of troule to these institutions y as+ingthem to stand up and spea+ a simple truth' %ut it was very instructive to meS This was when I Grst

realised what culture is'Oou also had a suse@uent dispute with &trathclyde Regional 2ouncil over thecommercial or the non8commercial status of your garden temple B another disputewhich proaly conGrmed your sense of the secularity and materiality of contemporarycultureJThey won on a technicality and now I am supposed to pay a lot of money which I won7t pay' Theycannot put me in prison B they can only come and ta+e my possessions away from me, which Isuppose they will do' Now I have closed the garden to the pulic' 3y position is that since the non8secular status of my garden is not recognised y the law? y the world of the pulic, then the gardencan only e private' &o, I closed the garden to the pulic' The (rts 2ouncil had the opportunity to solve this dispute' 3any years ago the &heri7s cer,tired of having to raid my temple, had a secret meeting with me and as+ed me how this disputecould e resolved' I suggested that since the &cottish (rt 2ouncil advises the government on all thematters concerning the arts, he should as+ them to give an opinion on the status or the nature ofthe uilding' In a meeting of the twenty two memers of the 2ouncil, the evidence I had preparedwas considered, ut they voted unanimously to e:press no opinion at all' 3y view was that theycould disagree with my opinion if they wished, ut that they should fulGl their oligation to advicethe government one way or the other, or they should all e removed from their positions' They werenot removed, of course' Recently, I spo+e to the Uisual Director of the &cottish (rts 2ouncil and he told me that hewouldn7t contradict the Region ecause the Region might reduce its support for the arts' %ut whathe really meant was that he wouldn7t contradict the Region for the general good of his Ko' The same sort of thing happened in my dispute with the National Trust oo+C FolliesC ( NationalTrust *uide, which implied that the only pleasure you can get from Folly architecture is y calling thearchitect mad, and y laughing at the architecture' hen I wrote to the National Trust to remindthem that their tas+ is to preserve uildings and traditions remar+ing that this oo+ was asolutelydestructive, they wrote ac+ to me very casually' &o I started a whole campaign and got otherpeople to Koin in' In the end they removed their name from the oo+, and told everyody that I wasa NaAi supporter, and so on and so on, and they too never forgave me' (t one stage of this dispute they told me that they would pulish anything which made moneyShat can you sayJ This oo+ treated some of the greatest >nglish gardens as 6follies7' This is an agethat treats its whole past as something outside itself which it wishes to reKect or moc+ or whatever'hat can you sayJ It is madness B none of these attles should have e:isted' %ut, in each casepeople had a pulic position which made it reasonale to thin+ that they should have defendedcertain values and they all found e:cuses not to do so' I would have supposed that their wholenatural inclination would have een to defend these things, ut it ecame clear that their naturalinclination was the very opposite of this'&o, in your terms, the tragedy of our culture is that it has lost all sense of responsiilitytowards its pastJThe condition of our culture is that it feels separated from the past and, of course, the past nowecomes nothing more than two years ago or three years ago' It used to e thousands of years,then it ecame hundreds, and now anything that is not part of an instant of fashion is considered thepast' ithin the enclaves of university walls, you7re allowed to ta+e aout the past, ut only ofcourse in an academic manner' It is not allowed to e treated as 6real7 or anything li+e that' utsidethe university walls, you7re not allowed even to tal+ aout it' To read *ree+ philosophy is suspect,and 6elitist7' There used to e no such word, they had the word 6educated7 instead' %ut now you7renot educated, you7re an elitist, and wic+ed'


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Ian Hamilton Finlay

%ust of &aint8Qust,

with vase of )owers

If art can open a channel of communication with the past, do you thin+ that culture as awhole would then follow its e:ampleJNo, ecause you would e as+ing the culture to do something it cannot do B it would have tochange its eing to e ale to do that' For me, the crucial point is the destruction or the end of piety'The nineteenth century announced the death of *od or the end of *od' ur century, though it hasn7teen made clear yet, has announced the death of piety or the end of piety B there is no place forpiety any longer' This is the prolem today ecause piety seems to represent the condition of

6oKectivity7 in a culture B without piety nothing can e understood' It is hard to thin+ of anyprevious age in which there has een this +ind of asence of piety B piety too+ dierent forms, utit has never efore een completely aandoned' ur age has aandoned it and that is why so manythings ecome incomprehensile, and therefore cannot e spo+en aout' %ut you have tounderstand that I consider myself a very modest artist, or whatever, and not of importance really atall B it is @uite emarrassing to me to e as+ed my opinion aout things' I am only a wee &cottishpoet on the outside of everything'This reminds me of your response to Qohn Q' &har+ey when he as+ed you to contriute tohis anthology of concrete poetry 63indplay7 of !"!when you replied that you didn7t feelinvolved in what was happening then Note "'ell, proaly I was fed up with concrete poetry' There was a lot of ad concrete poetry and esides,it was confused with visual poetry which was completely dierent'Oou also remar+ed in a more recent interview with Nicholas Vurrugg that you don7tconsider yourself to e an avant8garde artistJ Note !1Oes, the idea of the avant8garde doesn7t seem to me to e relevant' hether I am or not B whocares, it is not important' I mean what avant8garde is there in %ritainJ Nothing' Nothing that is not

fashionale, completely acceptale to everyody, completely supported y the (rts 2ouncil B thereis only state aided art'In this respect it seems that your wor+ resists oth the superGcial novelty of fashion andthe more radical sense of innovation associated with the avant8garde, and oers ageneral cultural criti@ue ased upon the aesthetic principles emedded in the classicalwhich oppose the very idea of fashion and radical innovation' Oour wor+ seemsconcerned primarily with giving instances of what you thin+ of as the eautiful? harmony,purity, devotion and heroism' Rather than celerating the past on its own right, it seemsto celerate e:amples from the past that correspond to your vision of eauty' &o thepast seems to e a part of your present, rather than a sustitute for your present'Oes, all these things are parts in a language that I can use'&ome of your critics discuss your wor+ in terms of inary oppositions etween wit,humour, and the seriousness of a cultural criti@ue, etween surprising images of warfareand the peaceful content of harmony, purity and simplicity Note !!' Do you sense suchframewor+s in your visionJNot particularly, I don7t thin+ of it that way at all' 3aye it comes out li+e this, ut I don7t thin+ of itin these terms at all' I do dierent wor+, some pastoral, some tragic? some this, and some that' Iwor+ with a range of things, ut that is life, isn7t it'Presumaly such critics are trying to detect generic patterns in your wor+J
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Oes, ut I don7t thin+ I have such patterns'Oou ma+e this +ind of point in your famous letter to the French poet Pierre *arnier of!"04, in which you note that none of your poems reveal a method that can e applied tothe ne:t poemC 6I cannot derive from the poems I have written any 6method7 which cane applied to the writing of the ne:t poem'7 Note !#I am always a eginner' I only try to include dierent parts of life? the pastoral, the tragic, et cetera'How important for you is it that your references to such parts of life are successfullycommunicated y your wor+J How important for you is the process of communicating a

speciGc contentJThis @uestion is @uite simple really' Oou assume some sort of common humanity which is accessileto everyody, and you try to remain true to that' Therefore, you don7t thin+, for e:ample? 6Is theNational Trust going to understand thisJ7 or 6Is so and so going to understand thatJ7' Oou Kust thin+ 6Isthis pure or notJ7' If the wor+ is pure then you have to thin+ it could e understood' If it is notunderstood it doesn7t mean that your wor+ is not accessile' It doesn7t worry me, ut, of course, Iwould e pleased if people li+ed my wor+' However, I don7t feel the world is loo+ing over myshoulder when I am wor+ing B I never thin+ aout this at all' hat I thin+ aout is trying to ma+emy wor+ pure, and if it is pure then it can e accessile' It is @uite straight forward really'

Ian

Hamilton Finlay

Little &parta,front gate

Do you thin+ your concerns for classical values and for artistic purity dierentiate youraesthetic from the concerns of *omringer and the &outh (merican poetsJOes, it is dierent' They are more modern people than I am' I mean I was Kust a little outsider,hungry, without money, without a place in the world and so on' &omethings, however, I did sharewith them, ut I thin+ my concerns are often misunderstood' For e:ample, a lot of people interpretedmy dispute with &trathclyde Regional 2ouncil as one of the individual against ureaucracy, ut thisis not what it was at all' I used to get @uite upset y getting supported y people who thought I wasacting in an anarchic manner' I didn7t want support from such people? they misunderstood what theprolem was' &o, I made a ruer stamp to put on my letters to sayC 6the people has a right torigorous ureaucracy7 which shoc+ed everyody' *omringer and the Noigandres *roup really elong to a dierent world from mine B I mean(ugusto, whom I used to write to, was a lawyer and lived in a )at in &ao Paulo, in %raAil' Loo+ whereI live' *omringer was secretary to 3a: %ill and so on' Oou have to rememer we had @uite dierentlives' 3y life has always een on the outside'How would you descrie your life? would you call it a life of a concrete poet? of an artist?of a cultural classicistJI thin+ all of these things are to do with composing' hat you compose with is neither here northere, you compose with words, or you compose with stone plants and trees, or you compose withevents? the &heri7s ocer, or whatever' It is all a matter of composing and 6order7'
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10/10

N O T E SNote !&ee %o Perelman, The Marginalization o Poetry!-PrincetonC Princeton Mniversity press, !""0/, alsosee, 2harles %ernstein, Content"s Drea#, -Los (ngeles, &un W 3oon, !".0/'Note #Ian Hamilton Finlay, 6Letters to >rnst Qandl7, Chap#an, no' .8", !""5, p'!#'Note 4Ian Hamilton Finlay, Letter to Pierre *arnier, ! &eptemer, !"04, Concrete Poetry$ % world &iew, 3ary

>llen &olt -ed'/, Indiana Mniversity Press, -London, !"1/, p'.5'Note 5>ugen *omringer, 6From Line To 2onstellation7 -!"$5/, 'orld (iew, 3ary (' &olt -ed'/, p'0'Note $2harles Qenc+s, 6The 3oral In (rtC Re)ections n The Finlays7 ars7, C)%PM%*, doule issue No' .8"->dinurgh, !""5/, p'!0$'Note 0Linda Hutcheon, 6TheoriAing The Post83odernC Towards ( Poetics7, The Post+Modern Reader!2harlesQenc+s -ed'/, (cademy >ditions - London !""#/, p'0'Note Duncan *len, 6&ome Thoughts and Reminiscences7, C)%PM%*, doule issue No' .8" ->dinurgh,!""5/, p'#4'Note .&tuart 3ills, 6The Implications f Poetry7,%,ROS, Uol' 0, 3arch -!"#/, p'#"'Note "Qohn Q' &har+ey, Mindplay$ %n %nthology o British Concrete Poetry, Lorrimer Pulishing -London, !"!/p'!0'Note !1Ian Hamilton Finlay, interviewed y Nicholas Vurrugg,%rt - Design, proGle No' 5$ -London, !""$/,p'5'Note !!For e:ample, see Oves (riou:7s 6>ye, Qudgement and ImaginationC ords and Images from theFrench Revolution in the or+ of Ian Hamilton Finlay7 -!""5/, p'!$0, and Thomas (' 2lar+7s 6The Idiom of theMniverse7 -!".$/, p' !4!, in 'ood *otes 'ild, (lec Finlay -ed'/, Polygon, ->dinurgh, !""$/'

Note !#Ian Hamilton Finlay, Letter to Pierre *arnier -!"04/'
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The Death of Piety

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Transcript of The Death of Piety