This is a standing poem with the silhouette of two sails. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

This is a standing poem with the silhouette of two sails. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

The cover drawing by David Button is a sail boat presumably "stationary" or dead in the water and the print by Ron Costis a ruled blue sheet captioned "stationery." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

The number "2" is written to form the silhouette of a swan. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

The image was the drawing for a sculpture to be made in slate. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

The image is a Scottish sailing ship and the caption refers to Joseph Viala or Bara, there is confusion about the names. He was the little drummer boy who during the French Revolution when ordered to call "Vive le Roi" called "Vive la Rupublique and was shot. In 1794 J-L David painted "Death of Viala (Bara?). -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

The title has been inscribed on a guillotine blade and underneath it the inscription "Death to the Strathclyde Region" is inscribed on the black background, a reference to Finlay's dispute with the local tax collectors. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

This card folded twice has three leaves. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

There is no reference made to this book in the various Finlay bibliographies but the the same images printed on identical paper are bound into the exhibition catalog, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Serpentine Gallery, London, 1977, a book also held by the Sackner Archive. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

This depicts 10 line drawn, picture poems printed in red and black, one to a page that involve a war theme. A complete reprinting of this book appeared as a section of the catalog for Finlay's exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery (1977). Unable to locate an entry for this book, which was printed by the Stellar Press, in the Finlay bibliographies. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Stephan Bann provides an explanation of the poem in the accompanying leaflet as follows. Thermidor was the month in the French Revolutionary calendar when the summer heat was its most intense, and the grain at its ripest. It was also the month, in 1794, when Robespierre and his followers met their deaths at the guillotine. In the image of this poem, the abrupt cleavage of the word, THER MIDOR, and of the figured sheaf of flowers, suggest the termination of the revolution in its Jacobian sense. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

A wash-like painting of the sky, the sea, a road, a desert, with "Ulysses Was Here" printed on the road in classical typography. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

The catalogue was designed by Ron Costley. It includes a long critical introduction by Stephen Bann focusing on Finlay's contributions to concrete poetry and his swing toward neo- classicism in the picture poems carried out by inscriptions on stone plaques in the garden. The catalogue also has a reprinting of Finlay's "A Wartime Garden." The illustrations depict several unique stone, neon, and glass sculptures. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.