Scottish - Poet | October 28, 1925 - March 27, 2006
People have always found me challenging - I don't know why, when I am only being myself. I don't understand why they find me so annoying but they do. It is pity, but that is how it is.
Ian Hamilton Finlay
MyselfI AmPeopleMeBeing Myself
I am not a modern man, I am just a wee old fashioned one.
ManI AmOldModernJustAm
I came to these mediums through having the garden, and of course, people who have designed gardens have always worked in collaboration, and never made their own inscriptions.
PeopleCollaborationGardenNever
As a friendly one. I would still like to write concrete poems, but I can only do it sometimes.
I CanSometimesWriteConcreteWould
For me concrete poetry was a particular way of using language which came out of a particular feeling, and I don't have control over whether this feeling is in me or not.
PoetryMeControlLanguageFeeling
But I can only write what the muse allows me to write. I cannot choose, I can only do what I am given, and I feel pleased when I feel close to concrete poetry - still.
I AmPoetryMeFeelChooseI Can
But at the beginning it was clear to me that concrete poetry was peculiarly suited for using in public settings. This was my idea, but of course I never really much got the chance to do it.
BeginningPoetryMeChanceNever
No, I don't make my work in order to challenge or confuse other people's expectations - I only do what I find natural.
WorkChallengePeopleExpectations
My position is that since the non-secular status of my garden is not recognised by the law; by the world of the public, then the garden can only be private. So, I closed the garden to the public.
LawWorldGardenPositionStatus
The same sort of thing happened in my dispute with the National Trust book: Follies: A National Trust Guide, which implied that the only pleasure you can get from Folly architecture is by calling the architect mad, and by laughing at the architecture.
TrustArchitectureBookYouMadGet
Little Sparta is a garden in the traditional sense. It is perhaps not like other modern gardens, but I think that other times would have had no difficulty with it.
ThinkGardenLittleModernSense
I have often said that just as the French revolution, for instance, understood itself through antiquity, I think our time can be understood through the French revolution. It is quite a natural process to use other times to understand your own time.
TimeRevolutionThinkProcessSaid
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