I suppose I was first struck by the possibilities of la poésie concrète when I encountered in my youth the delightful verses of Ian Hamilton Finlay, a first impression that must have been significant in my emotional life because I still have the faded clipping here on my desk, a survival of so very many idle decades that I hesitate to number them.
Nevertheless, that regret aside, I don’t have to explain to you the reasons why I was refreshed by the clarity of expression and by the simplicity and immediacy of the poet’s vision . . . you can see at once for yourself why I was hooked
 |
(Rousay refers to the small, hilly island
about 3 km north of Orkney’s Mainland,
off the north coast of Scotland,
where Hamilton lived after WW2.) |
So I claim this first reading as a defining moment and, reflecting on this memory, I realise it must have been the seed from which many years later sprang my curiosity to restore to readers the Eleven Surviving Works of L v. K, including his prophetic concrete sonnet of 1938, Exhibit V, displayed as his memorial in the reception room of his apartment in Avenue d’Iéna, Paris, shortly after his death following the signing of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Treaty (23 August 1939).
See the eleven exhibits at the Arts Council Poetry Collection website administered by the Poetry Library at Royal Festival Hall in London’s Southbank Centre:
http://poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/recordbfb6.html?id=9440
The Eleven Surviving Works of L v. K
(1902-1939)
A Memoir of a Numeromaniacal Futurist
V
‘FELDSCHUSTEREI’* – SONNET IN METRICAL FEET WITH MASCULINE AND FEMININE ENDINGS (1938): 112 miscellaneous unmatched items of abandoned footwear, including children’s slippers and orthopaedic boots, arranged in 14 rows of 8 items, with additional line endings as follows: Lines 1, 4, 5 & 8 – knieschützer†; Lines 2, 3, 6 & 7 – women’s satin dancing pumps; Lines 9 & 12 – schaftstiefel‡; Lines 10 & 13 – wooden clogs; Lines 11 & 14 – young girl’s gilded sandals.
* Field shoemender’s shop
† Parachutist kneepads (half rhymes noted by L v. K)
‡ Jack boots or Marschstiefel
Not all British critics, though, at the time of Hamilton Finlay’s witty innovations were entirely tolerant of the revival of these Dadaistic forms, according to my clippings file . . . and the question remains: Was the ‘anti-art’ of ‘anti-print’ prematurely embalmed?
See also, poésie trouvée, the unsought text:
and
