Homage to the Square: Ian Hamilton Finlay's Poor. Old. Tired. Horse

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
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 Politics, Philosophy and Area Studies
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:	23 Oct 2024 19:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/95026
DOI:	10.1080/0950236X.2024.2362052

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