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This hand made booklet reprints the nine one-word poems first published
in the final issue of Poor. Old. Tired. Horse. no. 27 (c.1967).
Ian Hamilton Finlay had requested from his contributors poems which "consist
of one word, with a title of any length, these two elements forming,
as it were, a corner which would then contain the meaning". He wrote
to the Austrian poet Ernst Jandl:
"The kind of poem I would most
like is a serious one, for many people have sent examples which are
only briefly witty, and the form is capable of more than that. After
all, one has the whole title to move around in."
Edwin Morgan's poems are otherwise uncollected, though three ('glasgow',
'morning' and 'blue') are included in Atoms of Delight: an anthology
of Scottish haiku and short poems (2000).
Notes on individual poems
'glasgow'
The name Glasgow comes from "Glagu, Glesgu or Gleschow,
the Celtic meaning Kentigern's 'beloved green place' where he met Columba
and built his first church".
'the'
Louis Zukofsky (1904-1978), US poet and critic. His major book
of poems is A.
'roncevalles'
Roncevalles is a village in the Spanish Pyrenees, near
the French border. It is famous for the battle fought there in 778, when
Charlemagne was defeated, and Roland – hero of the 12th century
poem Le Chanson de Roland – died, blowing the horn known as the
'olifant'.
'paradada'
Dom Silvester Houédard (1924-1992), monk and poet.
His sound poem 'paradada' was published in the Times Literary Supplement,
6 August 1964, an issue which also included poems by Morgan.
'vasarely'
Victor Vasarely (1906-1997), French-Hungarian pioneer of Op-art.
'asdic'
According to the OED, Asdic comes from Anti-Submarine Division,
and was "an
early form of sonar used to detect submarines".
'voznesenky'
Andrei Voznesensky (1933-), Russian poet. Edwin Morgan translated
a number of his poems including 'Selling Watermelons' and 'New York Airport
at Night'.
Related resources
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Published
by the Scottish
Poetry Library. A registered charity (No. SCO23311)
1980s
1980s