Finlay, Ian Hamilton

Glasgow Beasts, an a Burd/ Haw, an Inseks, an, aw, a fush

London, England, UK: Fulcrum Press/Wild Flounder Press, 1965. Fifth Edition. Staplebound. "Come back | as a coal - hoarse | ho the | heavy | a | hauf the day | wi yir piece | hauf - etten | hung | roon yir | ear" (final entry, unpaginated). Glasgow Beasts, an a Burd/ Haw, an Inseks, an, aw, a fush by Scottish poet Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006) is a sequence of about a dozen very short poems in broad phonetic Glaswegian, narrated by a soul transmigrating through a series of Glasgow lives. Each incarnation (a bull, a minnow, a bird, a horse, a fish & various insects) gets a few lines of overheard-sounding vernacular, paired with a decorative paper cut by British artists John Picking (b. 1939) & Pete McGinn. The joke of the full title is itself the method: the speaker keeps remembering more creatures he's been, tacking them on as afterthoughts. Finlay was pulling from Japanese sources, notably Shimpei Kusano's frog poems and founder of the avant-garde poetry magazine Origin Cid Corman's translations of them. Text and image are inseparable, which is why the book reads as an early signpost toward Finlay's turn to concrete poetry. Glasgow Beasts, an a Burd/ Haw, an Inseks, an, aw, a fush also connected Finlay outward to American contemporaries like Beat Generation poet Robert Creeley rather than to the Scottish Renaissance establishment. For more from Finlay please see Item No.s 8502, 9286 & 9386. From the collection of Richard Cupidi (b. 1945), our esteemed mate in the UK who managed the fabled Unicorn Bookshop in Brighton, England for founder Bill Butler (1934-1977, the famed American-expatriate bookseller & publisher). From the late 1960s through the early 1970s, Unicorn proffered & published many outstanding productions by William S. Burroughs (1914-1997), J.G. Ballard (1930-2009) et al., some of which have become the scarcest, all-but-unobtainable Beat-&-Beyond collectibles (see for example our Item No.s 8217 & 8366). After prevailing against censorious harassment efforts, Unicorn closed & Butler died in short order. Cupidi went on to found the Public House Bookshop in Brighton, which had a long & successful run but is also now closed, & he still resides there. We have been honored to obtain what Cupidi has termed "The Last Hurrah," all the remaining gems of Unicorn & Public House, including this standout. Chapbook in Stapled Wrappers with Flaps: Fifth Edition per front flap, presumed first printing thus. A most sought after, collectible book of poetry in its propreantepenultimate form with highly relevant association & very distinguished provenance. In relatively fine-to-very fine condition with mild age-toning, rubbing & spot-staining mostly to fine edges of front, back covers, spine & flaps; light bumping to corners of same; mild age-toning & rubbing to text block. Interior fine-to-very fine with mild age-toning mostly to blank margins & fine edges of page leaves. Fine-Very Fine. [Item #9288]

Price: $150.00 save 10% $135.00