Annie Finch
poet, writer, performer
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The Encyclopedia of Scotland

The Encyclopedia of Scotland, first published in 1982, is a passionate invocation to a Muse at once abundant and excruciating. Originally sung and chanted by Finch and other performers with a musical ensemble, this rhythmic feast enacts a complex ritual of self-initiation into the realm of poetry.

Publisher: Salt Pub
Published Date: January 1, 2004
Pages: 108
Language: English
ISBN: 978-1844710362

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Here is high artifice and sonic astonishment, here is a unique mind at literary play.

Jennifer Moxley

From The Publisher

The Encyclopedia of Scotland, Annie Finch’s first published book of poetry, is a performance poem for soul-voice and attendant daemons, a passionate invocation to a Muse at once abundant and excruciating. Includes cover art and four illustrations by artist Alix Baer Bacon, and a pencil sketch of Calliope and the Sheep by Annie Finch. Published by Salt Press in the UK in 2004, the book is currently out of print. Copies are available directly from Annie.

Excerpt

Oh I hated each tread and each riser
Never hated anything so much.
Each blue trea. Each red riser. Each lichen-licking yellow metafour
Up up up up
nwod nwod nwod nwoD

More Information

Links

Read an Excerpt from “Feeding the Admiral’s Pussycat” section of The Encyclopedia of Scotland in Jacket

Story of Annie Finch and Eileen Myles during the period of the writing of The Encyclopedia of Scotland.

Alix Baer Bacon (The Muse in the poem, and cover artist) 

Reviews

Here is high artifice and sonic astonishment, here is a unique mind at literary play.

Jennifer Moxley

Annie Finch can’t be a new formalist, precisely because she’s passionate both about the new and about form. She is also one of the great risk-takers in contemporary poetry, right up there with Lee Ann Brown & Bernadette Mayer in her willingness to completely shatter our expectations as readers. The Encyclopedia of Scotland fundamentally demonstrates just how deep Finch’s commitment to language is. It will force many readers to rethink whatever they may have thought they knew about Finch & her project heretofore.

Ron Silliman on “Silliman’s Blog”

In the face of technological and consumer culture, Finch’s fanciful libretto opts for evanescence over irony, sensual pleasure over theoretical critique. Hidden codes and secret pleasures, nursery rhymes and popular songs, primordial ooze and joyous sound-patterning animate these pages. Friskily sporting with lofty tones and poetic apparatus, The Encyclopedia of Scotland (written in 1980) anticipates works such as Lisa Robertson’s Debbie: An Epic and Stacy Doris’ Paramour.

Jennifer Moxley