Poet and artist Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006) was perhaps best known, at least in Scotland, for his extraordinary garden at Little Sparta near Biggar, with its fusion of landscape, art, and concrete verse.
But he was also a more conventional poet of charm and humour as is demonstrated by this sample from his collection The Dancers Inherit the Party.
FINLAY'S HOUSE (IN ROUSAY)
And this is Finlay's house –
A wild stone on the floor,
Lots and lots of books
And a chair where you can't sit for
– No, not the tar –
The hooks, the lost fish-hooks.
Dried fish festoon the wall
And that stone sticks the door.
Spiders spin in nooks.
The visitors tend to fall.
They trip first, then they fall –
They catch on the lost fish-hooks.
I ought to shift that stone
But it seems easier
To unscrew the door.
Am I an awful man?
I'm better housed than ducks
And like to lose fish-hooks.
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