questions & answers
‘What is forgetting?
An unripe apple stabbed by a spear’
Paul Celan
what’s a garden?
culture & labour producing
an annual surplus of colou
what’s a hut?
four thin walls nailed around a stove
what’s a river?
a flower with its roots in the hills
what’s a beach?
an abacus which counts in lines
powered by the moon
what’s the sea?
if the sea knew what it was
it wouldn’t keep coming back
what is illness?
strangeness felt inside us
what’s a pigeon?
not what, but …
who, whoo
what’s nectar?
a different colour & scent where you enter
what’s an apple?
a dark star within the earth
what’s the moon?
a coin in the high-rise slot machine
what’s a friend?
bare love
what’s love?
day is, day’s us, day was
what’s a park?
walks on grass
what’s a lake?
a glass rinsed by cloud
what’s the sky?
jug of blue
what’s tea?
an old pond to fish in
what’s London?
a shard with its sides
rent by The River
—
Inspired by Paul Celan’s Romanian poems composed in the manner of Surrealist questions, translated by Julian Semilian and San Agalidi. With contributions from Davy Polmadie and Daisy Lafarge. These poems were realised as nest-boxes with painted text, in Southwark Park, London, commissioned by CGP Gallery, in 2018.
Glossary: bare: very, a lot; rinsed: overused, used up, all gone; ‘what’s tea?’: after IHF, sort of.
Finlay established morning star publications in 1990. He has published over forty books and won seven Scottish Design Awards, including two Grand Prix Awards (2001, 2015). Recent publications include a far-off land (2018); gathering, published by Hauser & Wirth (2018); th' fleety wud (2017), minnmouth (2017), ebban an’ flowan (2015), and Global Oracle (2014).