"It doesn't greatly matter to me whether I'm using plants or trees or stones or words or events," the artist, poet and gardener Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925–2006) once told an interviewer; "the impulse is always to make a coherent order out of things." Through a carefully edited selection from a voluminous correspondence, A Model of Order tracks the unique arc of Finlay's development, from poet writing in Scots dialect, to Concrete poet, toymaker and deviser of poems and inscriptions in glass, wood and stone, installed in parks and gardens. The title derives from Finlay's famous definition of Concrete poetry as "a model of order, even if set in a space which is full of doubt," a definition conceived in correspondence with poet Pierre Garnier. Poet and editor Thomas A. Clark's selection of Finlay's letters―to Louis Zukofsky, Robert Creeley and Ernst Jandl among others―explicates a rigorous and moral vision of the act of making.

Ian Hamilton Finlay: A Model of Order: Selected Letters on Poetry and Making

Arts & Photography

Hamilton Finlay, Ian

Individual Artists

WAX366

Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925–2006) was one of Scotland's leading twentieth-century public intellectuals, and famously one of its most brilliant and combative correspondents. His letters raise issues of particular and widespread interest both within Scotland and further afield. His correspondence with Stephen Bann, the English poet and academic, have a very special place in this context. These letters present in a clear and commensurable form the development of his ideas about poetry and art, and increasingly about sculpture and gardening, over this critical five-year period of his creative life.
The letters begin when Bann was still a student at Cambridge, and Finlay was living in considerable hardship in Edinburgh, though he already had a significant international reputation as a poet. They reveal in fascinating and intimate detail the poet's developing creative process, and also record his often turbulent relationship to the worlds of literature, art, and critical journalism. When he settles in Lanarkshire, he begins to develop the ideas that will result in the creation of the world-famous sculpture garden known as Little Sparta.
This book, edited, introduced, and annotated by Bann himself, is a unique and compelling self-portrait of the man who is now recognized not only as a great poet, but also as a major artist and one of the most original garden designers of modern times.
Stephen Bann is a poet, historian, and cultural critic. He is an emeritus professor of the history of art at Bristol University, and the author of numerous books and articles.

Midway: Letters from Ian Hamilton Finlay to Stephen Bann 1964-69

Bann, Stephen

Sculpture

Wilmington Square Books

A companion to Midway, this is the second volume of letters of Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006), the leading Scottish poet, artist, sculptor, and garden designer. His garden at Stonypath, now called "Little Sparta" has been described as "the only truly original garden created since 1945."
These letters to and from Finlay's friend, the English poet and scholar Stephen Bann, center on the initial development of the garden near Edinburgh. They cover Finlay's turn away from poetry towards sculpture and garden design and the thinking behind, and consequences of, this development.

Stonypath Days: Letters between Ian Hamilton Finlay and Stephen Bann 1970-72

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