Hair, Ross ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3570-7471
(2024)
Homage to the Square: Ian Hamilton Finlay's Poor. Old. Tired. Horse.
Textual Practice, 38 (6).
pp. 945-966.
ISSN 0950-236X
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Abstract
Started by Ian Hamilton Finlay and Jessie McGuffie in 1962, the little magazine Poor. Old. Tired. Horse. – along with the Wild Hawthorn Press which launched in 1961 – was an influential (and combative) presence within the small press milieu of the 1960s. Both magazine and press displayed a ‘constructive’ sensibility that encompassed geometric abstract painting, Russian constructivism, Op art, and concrete poetry. This constructive aesthetic often appeared in the context of relatively ‘square’ themes – teapots and old tired horses – that in the countercultural climate of liberated mind and body, seemed quaint. ‘Square’ therefore denotes a tendency toward the orthogonal (as opposed the curvilinear) and a sense of propriety that is deliberately unhip. In both cases, the ’square’ nature of POTH was a critical incitement aimed at the Dionysian excesses of contemporary poetry, art and the Mimeo Revolution that propagated them.
Item Type: | Article |
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Additional Information: | Issue: The Mimeograph Revolution: Little Poetry Magazines and the Avant-garde. Guest Editors: Douglas Field and James Riley |
Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Art, Media and American Studies (former - to 2024) |
UEA Research Groups: | Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Area Studies Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > American Studies |
Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
Date Deposited: | 26 Apr 2024 14:30 |
Last Modified: | 11 Aug 2024 05:30 |
URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/95026 |
DOI: | 10.1080/0950236X.2024.2362052 |
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