Ian Hamilton Finlay
Ian Hamilton Finlay CBE (28 October 1925 – 27 March 2006) was a Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener.
Ian Hamilton Finlay
28 October 1925
27 March 2006 (aged 80)
Scottish
Poetry, concrete poetry, art, gardens, sculpture, publishing
- Little Sparta with Sue Finlay
- Sea Poppy I (with Alistair Cant)[1]
- Starlit Waters[2]
- The Little Seamstress[3] (with Richard Demarco)
- Tree-Shells[4] (with Ian Gardner)
Life[edit]
Finlay was born in Nassau, Bahamas, to James Hamilton Finlay and his wife, Annie Pettigrew, both of Scots descent.
He was educated at Dollar Academy in Clackmannanshire and later at Glasgow School of Art. At the age of 13, with the outbreak of the Second World War, he was evacuated to family in the countryside (firstly to Gartmore and then to Kirkudbright). In 1942, he joined the British Army.[5] Finlay was married twice and had two children, Alec and Ailie. Throughout his life, he suffered severely from agoraphobia. [6] He died in Edinburgh in 2006.[7] He is buried alone in Abercorn Churchyard in West Lothian. The grave lies in the extreme south-east corner of the churchyard. The gravestone refers to his parents and sister.
Poetry[edit]
At the end of the war, Finlay worked as a shepherd, before beginning to write short stories and poems, while living on Rousay, in Orkney. He published his first book, The Sea Bed and Other Stories, in 1958, with some of his plays broadcast on the BBC, and some stories featured in The Glasgow Herald.[5]
His first collection of poetry, The Dancers Inherit the Party, was published in 1960 by Migrant Press with a second edition published in 1962. The third edition, published by Fulcrum Press (London) in 1969, included a number of new poems and was inaccurately described by the publisher as a first edition, which led to a complex legal dispute.[8] Dancers was included in its entirety in a New Directions annual a few years later.
In 1963, Finlay published Rapel, his first collection of concrete poetry (poetry in which the layout and typography of the words contributes to its overall effect), and it was as a concrete poet that he first gained wide renown. Much of this work was issued through his own Wild Hawthorn Press, in his magazine Poor. Old. Tired. Horse.[9]
Finlay became notable as a poet, when reducing the monostich form to one word[10] with his concrete poems in the 1960s.[11] Repetition, imitation and tradition lay at the heart of Hamilton's poetry,[12] and exploring ' the juxtaposition of apparently opposite ideas'.[13]
Collaborators[edit]
Finlay's designs were most often built by others.[5] Finlay respected the expertise of sandblasters, engravers and printers he worked with,[34] having approximately one hundred collaborators including Patrick Caulfield, Richard Demarco, Malcolm Fraser, Christopher Hall, Margot Sandeman. He also worked with a host of lettering artists including Michael Harvey and Nicholas Sloan.[35][36]