After Ian Hamilton Finlay. According to a letter from Ian Hamilton Finlay to Stephen Bann in June 1970, I had failed to understand the writer’s poem Skylarks, with its implications of the naming of a fleet or class of boats, or as other aspects of literary history. Years later, as probably at the time, I came to realise that I want the singular word to emerge from the flaps and folds of its envelope as pure sensation, as the flight of the bird itself might arise from the furrows of a ploughed field, despite the weight of Symbolist history - a purely physical metaphor arising from the simple manipulation of ordinary stationery in the hands of a recipient.At the same time this text should not be considered by way of explanation but as some setting of lighter context. 1970 -1917. Card in envelope 90 x 115mm, photocopy and letterpress