13 APRIL 1962, Page 7

Haw An Aw

Mr. Yvor Winters, the American poet and critic of whom I wrote last week, is great on 'importance.' He certainly wouldn't go for Ian Hamilton Finlay's Glasgow Beasts An A Burd (otherwise Haw, An lnseks, An, Aw, A Fush), which is selling away merrily in its third edi- tion.* Mr. Finlay, like other learned men, is fascinated by the laconic, slack-jawed Glasgow weltanschauung, and has called in Zen to snare it. Thus:

honess pals

like ft .011%

no been born a cleg `k s e bess

Any Glaswegian would confirm the quality of this. Not to mention Shimpei Kusano whae writ a haill bulk o poems aboot puddocks. . . .