Page 40 - Studio International - February 1969

4
Cloud board 1968
wood
5
Weathercock 1968
wood and perspex
6
Starlit waters

of Finlay's poetry that his use of language which is presumed in the ordinary circum- demonstrates the point to the full. As the title
should involve this high degree of formal refer- stances of communication. But it is surely clear suggests, the signs which are used cluster
ence, just as the use of form in the work of many in addition that it represents an entirely valid around an imaginary centre like the petals of a
visual artists possesses a high degree of literary technique of communication, at least as far as poppy. But this reference is not the main sub-
reference. In certain cases a common form may the communication of aesthetic information is ject of the poem. Each of the composite signs is
serve as a link between two distinct verbal ex- concerned. Since the point at which he decided the registration mark of a fishing boat, involv-
pressions—as in the Cloud poem, where the that traditional discursive procedure — 'the ing both a number and a contracted form of the
form remains unstated, but nevertheless helps movement of language in me, was no longer name of the port of origin—usually made up of
the structure to cohere. In the case of the Fir- there', Finlay has been trying to discover new the first and last letters of that name. Each
tree rocket—one of the charming series of toys types of syntax, new methods of combining element of the poem therefore testifies to its
which Finlay has constructed— the verbal link- linguistic units. As the body of his work grows, place within a system beyond the poem, point-
age implied in the title takes second place to it becomes increasingly plain that this new ing both to its place of origin and its position
the unified formal expression : fir-tree as rocket syntax is not simply or exclusively the 'graphic within the paradigm or sequence of other like
or rocket as fir-tree. There is also a further pos- syntax' proclaimed by the concrete poets. At objects. At the same time, it is the visual pres-
sibility, where the fragment of language sug- a more fundamental level, it is a syntax based ence of the signs that asserts itself. There is a
gests a link between objects originally outside on the binary structure of language, reflecting curious tension between the cluster which we
the 'poem', and in this way formalizes them. the ultimate cleavage between visual presence see and the implication of other clusters—other
Such is the case with Finlay's Cloud board, and semantic inference and exploiting the pos- meaningful associations— beyond this visual
which was also completed in 1968. The sibilities of relationships of affinity and dis- presence.
single word to appear is 'cloud', inscribed on a similarity between linguistic components. Finlay's use of language implicitly assumes a
wooden board between two conventional point- The system which I have sketched corresponds view of mankind as 'the fabricator of meanings'
ing hands. Since the fingers point both upwards in many respects to that which is presumed in rather than 'the possessor of particular mean-
to the sky and downwards to a small pool in the study of semiology or the science of signs. ings' —as Roland Barthes has put it in his essay
which the sky is reflected, a relationship is es- My distinction between visual presence and on 'The Activity of Structuralism'. If we return
tablished between the cloud in the sky and the semantic inference is of course directly derived for a moment to his original sensation of the
reflected cloud in the reflected sky. Finlay ex- from the distinction between significant and loss of traditional linguistic movement, we can
tends the analogy by planting two types of `signifié', which is one of the cardinal points of interpret his career as a poet since that time as
aquatic plant in the tub. The water-lily be- semiology. In direct contrast to the 'semiotic' an attempt to capture or confer meaning. The
comes a metaphor for the billowing cloud in poets of Brazil, who attempt to confer semantic structure of a poem like Sea-poppy, which is
summer, while the small white flowers of the values on arbitrarily chosen geometrical forms, so finely poised between different strata of
starwort perform the same role during the Finlay exploits the possibilities inherent in the meaning, can surely be best understood as a
winter. very structure oflanguage. A recent glass poem demonstration of the act of conferring mean-
By this stage it should be obvious that Finlay's entitled Sea-poppy, which makes use of a ing. Despite the semantic pull of the other sys-
use of language is radically different from that specialized 'language' particularly dear to him, tems, the work is held in the precise order