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light is a right
A collaboration with Hester Parr, Hayden Lorimer and Shawn Bodden, ‘light is a right’ is a creative guide to wintering well, for people who are vulnerable to low winter light levels and SAD. The book is a harvest of creative practices shared by the wintering well collective at workshops in Glasgow, including wide-ranging tips and helps, photographs, samples from journals, a ‘letter to winter’, and collective poem-manifesto by Alec. The manifesto is also available as an A3 risograph poster (edition of 250 copies, £10).
Alec Finlay, Hester Parr, Hayden Lorimer, Shawn Bodden
morning star, 2023, colour paperback, 51pp, £5 + pp
wondrous sore
Two illustrated poetic essays reflecting on landscape, vulnerability, and violence. The first essay, wondrous sore, reflects on the traditional Scottish ballad ‘Mill of Tifty’ and the complex nature of domestic violence. The second considers the neglected history of plague huts and the bower of Bessy Bell and Mary Gray, reflecting on the ongoing pandemic. Illustrated with photos from the Canmore archive and printed by risograph.
Alec Finlay, Historic Environment Scotland, morning star 2023
Paperback, risograph, wire-stitched. Published in an edition of 200 copies. Price £5.00
I remember: scotland’s covid memorial
Alec Finlay, George Logan, Roxani Krystalli
‘I remember: scotland’s covid memorial’ is a visual document of the memorial artwork and walk created by Alec Finlay in Pollok Country Park, Glasgow. The book is a collaboration with artist George Logan whose photographs capture the unique character of each oak ‘support' and its relationship with the trees and surrounding woodland landscape. In her reflective introduction, Roaxani Krystalli asks how we might effectively produce a memorial to commemorate an ongoing event – one which still impacts the lives of so many every day: ‘What they-what we-have lost is varied, and so are our responses to that loss and to each other’s pain’. Finlay adds that: ‘While the text of the book recognises that the pandemic is ongoing and will not end if we continue in this way; that one in ten infections leads to Long Covid; and that the political classes have failed to provide adequate leadership; the images bring the heart closer to the landscape of memory itself, the acts of kinds and solidarity that sustained us, and which are expressed in the pose of each support’. This book is a companion to ‘I remember’, a collective remembrance of the pandemic, which was published in 2002.
Paperback book, printed b&w, edition of 400 copies, morning star & Stewed Rhubarb, 2024, 44 pp, RRP £7.50 + p&p
wild city | fiadh-bhaile | orasul salbatic
In collaboration with The Walking Library (Dee Heddon & Misha Myers), and poets Gerry Loose and Ken Cockburn, with artist Kate McAllan and photographer Mhairi Law, Finlay has created a generous and innovative mapping project focusing on rewilding the city of Glasgow. Featuring photographic and written documentation of a program of participative walks, public readings and workshops exploring encounters with wild nature in the greeny howe, reflecting on ecopoetics, rewilding in an urban context, the politics of green spaces and commons, and imaginative pathways to adapt to and reverse climate breakdown.
Alec Finlay, The Walking Library (Dee Heddon & Misha Myers), Ken Cockburn, Kate McAllan, Mhairi Law
morning star, 2018, colour paperback, 64pp, £6 + pp
gathering
A place-aware mapping of the Cairngorms in poems, essays, photographs and maps. Finlay has expanded Adam Watson's collections of place-names into a generous eco-poetical guide, accompanied by photographs of the hills in all their seasonal guises and featuring walk guides. Photographs by Hannah Devereux, Mhairi Law, Guy Moreton and James Dyas Davidson, and contributions by Gill Russell.
Alec Finlay, Hauser & Wirth, 2018, colour, hardback, 284pp, £40 + p&p
a far-off land
A book of place-awareness and companion to illness from the writings of David Doward, CP Will, and Adam Watson. New poems by Alec Finlay with accompanying photographs by Hannah Devereux. Published as a part of a far-off land series of new artworks for the Macmillan Day Unit, Arbroath Infirmary.
Alec Finlay, morning star, 2017, colour, paperback, 56pp, £10 + p&p
th' fleety wud
th' fleety wud is a place-aware mapping of the Upper Teviot watershed from the source at Teviot Stone to the Rule Water in the Scottish Borders. With a phylogenetic diagram and watershed map, place-name translations and new poetry.
Alec Finlay, Gill Russell, morning star, 2017, 16pp, £5 + p&p
minnmouth
minnmouth is a new book of poems by Alec Finlay. minnmouth bodes the inshot and ootshot tide: sea rise, coastal inundation, and the promise of marine renewables. The poems are anchored by place-names; they are composed in and impelled by the regional languages of the East Coast of the British Isles, from the Out Stack of Unst to Great Yarmouth. The book is the companion to tidesongs, composed by Hanna Tuulikki with Lucy Duncombe, from phrases and elements in the poems, available here.
Alec Finlay, morning star, FVU & North Light Arts, 2017, 52pp, £7.50 + p&p
I remember
‘I remember’ is a collective memory of the ongoing COVID pandemic. It was created to accompany Scotland’s Covid Memorial, which Alec created for Pollok Park, Glasgow. The book uses Joe Brainard’s well-loved form, ‘I remember …’, with single sentences recalling lost loved ones, and all aspects of the pandemic, from lockdown to the onset of Long Covid. A blend of loss, pathos, grief, fury, and wry humour, it is the first collective text that speaks to the complexity and burden of this human event.
Alec Finlay
book, edition of 500, Stewed Rhubarb, 2022, £10
limited edition of 26 copies, signed and lettered, 2022, £20
a better tale to tell
A work of collaged contemporary history – this book-length poem is composed entirely from individuals submissions to the Smith Commission. The text brings out a range of ideas and issues in the guise of rhetorical, personal and quirky voices, juxtaposing contradictory statements.
Alec Finlay, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow; National Library of Scotland; Saltire Society; and Scottish Poetry Library, 2015, 64 pp, £4.50 + p&p
I Hear Her Cry
A collection of the anagramatic poem clues for nest-boxes installed in trees in a woodland garden. I Hear Her Cry also includes poems, detatched sentences and an arboreal colourwheel. With an essay by Jeremy Millar and photographs by Stewart Clements.
Alec Finlay, Ingleby Gallery, 2015, 76pp, £20.00 + p&p
some colour trends
A genealogy of place-names in Deeside, Donside, Speyside, Strathbogie, and Strath Deveron, with new translations into English, poems and colour walks; with an introduction by David Wheatley.
Alec Finlay, Deveron Arts, 2014, 72pp, £6.00 + p&p
there were our own / there were the others
A book documenting 23 silent walks conceived by Alec Finlay for National Trust sites across England and Wales, to commemorate the outbreak of the First World War. The walks were lead by poet Ken Cockburn, and attended by members of the public. The book features photographs of the project by Luke Allan and Hannah Devereux, and specially commissioned poems by Ken Cockburn and Edmund Hardy. Commissioned by Trust New Art / National Trust. Awarded the Scottish Design Awards Grand Prix and Publication Award, 2015.
Alec Finlay, National Trust / morning star, 2014, 64pp, £5.00 + p&p
The Road North
A book documenting 23 silent walks conceived by Alec Finlay for National Trust sites across England and Wales, to commemorate the outbreak of the First World War. The walks were lead by poet Ken Cockburn, and attended by members of the public. The book features photographs of the project by Luke Allan and Hannah Devereux, and specially commissioned poems by Ken Cockburn and Edmund Hardy. Commissioned by Trust New Art / National Trust. Awarded the Scottish Design Awards Grand Prix and Publication Award, 2015.
Alec Finlay, National Trust / morning star, 2014, 64pp, £5.00 + p&p
Taigh: a wilding garden
An account of the traditions, stories, and ideas that inspired the National Memorial for Organ and Tissue Donors, a wilding garden and drystane Taigh, constructed this year in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh. With a commentary by Linda France and photographs by Hannah Devereux and others.
Alec Finlay, morning star & Edinburgh Sculpture Workshops, 2014, 112pp, £10.00 + p&p
Global Oracle
A book-length illustrated poem interweaving the bee-cults of the ancient world, most famously the Melissai of the Delphic oracle, with the science of apiology, bee communication, and the predominant 'oracle' of our era, the Navstar satellite system. Accompanied by drawings by Hanna Tuulikki and Alec Finlay. A free audio recording with sounds design by Chris Watson is available free on iTunes.
Alec Finlay, University of Warwick Art Collection, 2014, 80pp, £10.00 + p&p
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a-ga: on mountains
A new collection of pensée on mountains, walking and viewing, illustrated with photographs of word-mntn. Published on the occassion of the exhibition 'Wordsworth and Basho: Walking Poets' at Dove Cottage. Accompanied with photographs of Finlay's word-mntn sculptures by Luke Allan.
Alec Finlay with Ken Cockburn & Luke Allan, morning star, 2014, 46pp, £5.00 + p&p
sweeney on eigg
An imaginative translation of the manuscript known as Dreollan's Book found under a pillow of stone near St Bride's, Glendaruel. Created for Sweeney's Bothy, a new space for creative residences on the Isle of Eigg. Designed and published by Corbel Stone Press.
Alec Finlay, Corbel Stone Press, 2014, 12pp, £7.00 + p&p
today today today
Poems on illness and healing, published for a commission from Animate Projects to compose an artwork with and for the patients and staff of Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, Glasgow, a centre for cancer research and the treatment of people with brain tumours.
Alec Finlay, PlaySpace Publications, 2013, 30pp, £5.00 + p&p
a company of mountains
14 conspectuses on the Isle of Skye for viewing hills and mountains. The book accompanies a blog featuring commentaries, photographs, word-mntn drawings, and illustrations. www.company-of-mountains.com
Alec Finlay, commissioned by ATLAS, Isle of Skye, 2013, 19pp, £5.00 + p&p
Question your teaspoons
This is a lovely book of poetry by Alec Finlay focusing on his “Stonypathian Memories." The publication includes reflections on his family life and the landscape at Little Sparta.
Alec Finlay, Calder Wood Press, 2012, 36pp, £5 + p&p
Be My Reader
Be My Reader is a trove of texts made and found by Finlay over the past two decades, touching on philosophy, landscape, dance, football, travel and technology. Affectionate, celebratory and vulnerable by turns, it includes such key texts as his popular homage to Robert Creeley 'I Know A Poem', the long poem-mapping of the Wittgenstein Hut in Norway, and poems which emerged from art projects for civic spaces and landscapes, all interspersed with pitch-perfect renderings of off-key phrases overheard and chanced upon. Formally adventurous and restlessly curious, Be My Reader is a unique confluence of contemporary experimental and generative forms together with the lyric voice.
Alec Finlay, Shearsman Books, 2012, 82pp, £9.95 + p&p
White Peak / Dark Peak
An audio-visual word-map of The Peak District National Park, white peak / dark peak is a series of ambitious word-maps conceived by artist and poet Alec Finlay. It is an innovative combination of walking, letterboxing, Japanese renga and field-recording, and accompanies a website with skyline poems by Finlay, along with Alan Halsey, Geraldone Monk, Linda France and others, published on www.whitepeak-darkpeak.co.uk
Alec Finlay, morning star & Derbyshire Arts Development Group, 2010, 64pp, £7.50 + p&p
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Mesostic Remedy (paperback)
A poetical exploration of the remedial aspects, both physical and spiritual, that can be found in nature. Based on the 38 original remedies defined by Dr. Edward Bach, this beautifully illustrated collection of mesostic poems reveals both the negative and positive attributes of each natural cure, from agrimony through to willow.
Alec Finlay; with Linda France, illustrations by Laurie Clark, morning star, 2009, 160pp, £12.00 + p&p
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Mesostic Remedy (hardback)
A poetical exploration of the remedial aspects, both physical and spiritual, that can be found in nature. Based on the 38 original remedies defined by Dr. Edward Bach, this beautifully illustrated collection of mesostic poems reveals both the negative and positive attributes of each natural cure, from agrimony through to willow.
Alec Finlay; with Linda France, illustrations by Laurie Clark, morning star, 2009, 160pp, £20.00 + p&p
Mesostic Interleaved
100 mesostic poems composed on an eclectic selection of 100 authors. Published to commemorate the redevelopment of Edinburgh University Library (2009), Mesostic Interleaved is a poetic bibliography of eminent thinkers in the fields of Science & Technology, Politics & Economics, Languages & The Arts. Each page has space for writing your own poems and notes.
Alec Finlay, The University of Edinburgh & morning star, 2009 , 120pp, £12.00 + p&p
Specimen Colony
Produced in collaboration with The Bluecoat Gallery, Specimen Colony draws on an exhibition and permanent open-air installation of participative public sculpture series of colorfully painted nest-boxes. Finlay’s work transposes the colors of birds from foreign postage stamps onto the nest boxes – playfully commenting on Liverpool’s global links of trade and migration while contemplating the city’s avian emblem.
Alec Finlay; with Alexander Maris, Andrew Morley, Iain Pate, and Jo Salter, Liverpool University Press, 2008, 192pp, £17.99 + p&p
Noses Point
Catalogue of a series of mesostics, composed into a coastal walk at Durham Heritage Coast. Dedicated to the memory of Bill Griffiths.
Alec Finlay, platform projects, Durham County Council, 2008, 24pp, £4.50 + p&p
100 verses for 3 estates
Alec Finlay and Gavin Wade conceived a hyakuin renga word-map of the 3 Estates in Kings Norton, Birmingham. The book documents the creation of this highly innovative, public artwork as part of a regeneration scheme.
Alec Finlay with Gavin Wade, Strategic Questions, 2007, 192pp, £5.00 + p&p
Mesostic Laboratorium
A 64 page anthology of mesostic poems composed on the names of scientists.
Alec Finlay; with Ira Lightman, Tom Shakespeare, Chris Wood and students from six secondary schools in the North East., platform projects, morning star, Science Learning Centre North East, 2007, 64pp, £7.50 + p&p
Rosengarten
A collaboration between novelist and artist exploring the history and mythology of obstetrics. Poetry, plant-lore, short-prose, sculpture and photography combine to provide an oblique meditation on cultural and medical interventions into conception, contraception and childbirth.
Janice Galloway and Anne Bevan, platform projects, Hunterian Art Gallery, 2005, 96pp, £10.00 + p&p
Ideas Leave Objects Standing
A major collection by the Glasgow based artist and writer, David Bellingham, includes graphic and typographic work, texts, poems and photographic pieces.
David Bellingham, platform projects, BALTIC, 2005, 96pp, £15.00 + p&p
turning towards living
A collection of circle poems by Alec Finlay and other contributors.
Alec Finlay et al, platform projects, 2004, 124pp, £10.00 + p&p
DANCE / TRACE
Cultural Writing. Dance. Music. Multimedia. DtArNaCcEe is a field recording of the sounds of the dancers and dance classes performing on location at Dance City, the national dance agency for the North East of England.
Alec Finlay & Andrew Hudson, platform projects, morning star, Dance City, 2006, 12pp, audio CD, £11.99 + p&p
Wind Blown Cloud
Originally inspired by the Japanese poet Basho's description of being "drawn like a wind blown cloud" to make a journey, Alec Finlay started gathering images of clouds in 1999. He issued post card and web site invitations to anyone interested to contribute images of clouds to a slide archive housed at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead. This book presents a selection from that archive. As Finlay states in a letter to a very young contributor from Uruguay that is reproduced at the back of the book, he sees the clouds as "a way to connect people imaginatively. They are a reminder that we all live under the same sky." This book is a little portable marvel.
Alec Finlay, morning star, BALTIC, 2003, 56pp, paperback, £10.00 + p&p
Shared Writing: Renga Days
Following on from Verse Chain, this second volume documents more communal poetry in the practices of renga and haiku. It illustrates the expansion of the Renga Platform, a project initiated by Alec Finlay and David Connearn, and introduces other renga forms such as hyakuin renga – one hundred verses composed by poets over a twenty-four hour period. ‘… renga goes beyond poetry: it is an art of communalism’ (Alec Finlay).
Alec Finlay et al. morning star, platform projects, BALTIC, 2005, 128pp, £10.00 + p&p
Verse Chain: Sharing Haiku & Renga
The classical Japanese art of renga is a thousand year old form of communal poetry, in which poets compose a chain of linked verses. This beginners guide to sharing haiku and renga contains all that you will need to organise your own event: guidelines for composing renga of varying degrees of difficulty, from a simple version that takes an hour, to a 36-verse renga that requires a day; and examples of contemporary renga. With essays by Martin Lucas, Alec Finlay, Gerry Loose, Brian Tasker, Caitlin DeSilvey, and photographs by Nina Sverdvik and Dylan Matthew.
Alec Finlay and Martin Lucas, morning star, BALTIC, 2003paperback, 48pp, £10.00 + p&p
The Book of Questions
An invitation for questions asked by 3-5 year olds was sent out and the questions were archived. This book presents a collection of those questions, posed at the time during which a child is beginning to make sense of the world in which he or she lives. Compiled by artist and poet Alec Finlay in collaboration with Creative Partnerships, The Book of Questions is a special collection of childhood insights into our daily lives.
Alec Finlay, platform projects, morning star, BALTIC, 2005, 64pp, £5.99 + p&p
Bynames
An anthology of invented bynames for real people conceived and edited by Epic Filley (Alec Finlay). This anthology includes a variety of ‘bynames’ for famous writers and artists, invented names, misspellings, and pseudonyms. The majority of the bynames in the book are invented names for famous writers and artists.
Alec Finlay, platform projects, morning star, BALTIC, 2003, 104 pp, £10.00 + p&p
Avant-Garde English Landscape
Some versions of landscape, published to coincide with the exhibition Alec Finlay: Avant-Garde English Landscape, Bothy Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 5 November – 23 April 2006.
Alec Finlay and Alex Hodby, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 2005, 80pp, £12.00 + p&p
Irish (2)
Artist book with audio-CD. A walk in Skjolden and Rosro. Paul Celan's poem 'Irisch' (with five translations of the poem into English, and a translation into Irish Gaelic) overlaid onto photographs of the path to the Wittgenstein hut in Norway; accompanied with an essay by Tim Robinson describing a walk in Connemara.
Alec Finlay, Guy Moreton, Zoë Irvine, Tim Robinson, morning star, SPACEX, BALTIC, 2002, 28 pp, £10.00 + p&p
Three Rivers Crossword
A crossword map of the North East that follows the course of the Rivers Tyne, Wear, and Tees to create a word-map. The words and clues are an archaeological excavation of the geography, history and culture of the landscape.
Alec Finlay; with Ira Lightman, Beth Rowson and Sandy Balfour, platform projects, morning star, 2005, 128pp, £7.99 + p&p
two fields of wheat seeded with a poppy-poem
A poem-narrative by Alec Finlay with Caitlin DeSilvey, John Letts, David Easton, Alex Hodby and Maris
morning star, platform projects, Milton Keynes Gallery, 2007, 16pp, £4.50 + p&p
siren (audio-book)
siren explores sounds created by both humans and their surrounding environment. Collaborating with Chris Watson, Finlay recorded a man and woman simultaneously singing Tim Buckley's "Song to a Sailor" at dawn on two piers in the harbor of a North East English coastal village.
Alec Finlay & Chris Watson, platform projects; Com/Bklt edition, 2006, CD + booklet and photographs, £11.99 + p&p
Cowboy Story
Artist collaboration of poems, drawings, and musical score.
Alec Finlay, Richard Tuttle, Heather Deedman, Zoë Irvine, morning star, BALTIC, 2002, 28 pp, with mini disc, £10.00 + p&p
Football Moon
A selection of football haiku and accompanying illustrations by the artist.
Alec Finlay, morning star, BALTIC, 2002, 28pp, £10.00 + p&p
Labanotation: The Archie Gemmill Goal
A notation and a dance of a beautiful goal; this companion volume to Football Haiku features studio, workshop and stage performances by Kathi Palitz and Andy Howitt.
Alec Finlay: with photographs by Robin Gillanders and audio CD by Zoë Irvine, pocketbooks, 2002, 208pp, £7.99 + p&p
Football Haiku
Football haiku are very short poems; the anthology celebrates football, from park games to the World Cup. With photographs by Guy Moreton and audio CD by Zoë Irvine.
Alec Finlay, pocketbooks, 2002, 208pp, with audio CD, £7.99 + p&p
Distance & Proximity
The first collection of Scottish poet Thomas A. Clark’s prose poems. Distance & Proximity includes the ever-popular ‘In Praise of Walking’, as well as a number of previously unpublished poems, accompanied by the suggestive textures of Olwen Shone’s photographs. Edited by Thomas A. Clark and Alec Finlay. With photographs by Olwen Shone.
Thomas A. Clark, pocketbooks, morning star, Polygon, Taigh Chearsabhagh, National Galleries of Scotland, 2000, 128pp, £7.99 + p&p
Without Day
An anthology of proposals for a new Scottish parliament. Without Day includes an Aeolus CD by William Furlong. With an introduction by David Hopkins.
Alec Finlay, pocketbooks, morning star, Polygon, City Art Centre, 2000, 184pp, with audio CD, £7.99 + p&p
Flowers of the North Sea
An example of pure poetry in a scientific guise. Licence numbers of boats named after flowers are issued on a pack of cards; detailing individual boats by type (“Trawler”, “Motorised cutter”), full licence number, name, home port (“Eyemouth”, “Cuxhaven”), and flower family (“Culluna vulgaris”, “Rosa pimpinellifolia”). A simply presented package for the nautical, botanical, or poetry enthusiast.
Alec Finlay, morning star, 1999, 32pp, with 17 cards, £5.00 + p&p
Selected Walks 1979 - 1996
Richard Long is an internationally renowned artist whose work explores the landscape and the landscape tradition. This artist book takes an innovative approach to Long's use of text: a constant in his work.
Richard Long, morning star, The Centre for Artists Books, 1999, 24pp, £11.99 + p&p
light is a right
A collaboration with Hester Parr, Hayden Lorimer and Shawn Bodden, ‘light is a right’ is a creative guide to wintering well, for people who are vulnerable to low winter light levels and SAD. The book is a harvest of creative practices shared by the wintering well collective at workshops in Glasgow, including wide-ranging tips and helps, photographs, samples from journals, a ‘letter to winter’, and collective poem-manifesto by Alec. The manifesto is also available as an A3 risograph poster (edition of 250 copies, £10).
Alec Finlay, Hester Parr, Hayden Lorimer, Shawn Bodden
morning star, 2023, colour paperback, 51pp, £5 + pp
Machines a penser
An artistic encounter with three masters of 20th-century philosophy, each of whom experienced a place
of retreat or exile as decisive for their work: Ludwig Wittgenstein, who built himself a house in Norway; Martin Heidegger, who retreated to a hut in the Black Forest; and Theodor Adorno, who was forced into exile in Los Angeles in the late 1930s. The book features an extensive poetic account of Hutopiansim by Alec Finlay, including sections on the mountain huts, shieling, poetic retreats and bothies. The book also features work by Susan Philipsz, Mark Riley, Anselm Kiefer, Alexander Kluge, Goshka Macuga, Mark Manders, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Gerhard Richter and others, placed in dialogue with documentation and models of Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Adorno’s respective dwellings.
Fondazione Prada, 2018, colour, paperback, 546pp, £35 + p&p