2nd October, 2026

Guest post : Cary Archard – How many Finches are there?

In today’s post, Cary Archard look back on Peter Finch’s career following publication of several recent books on his work.

Now with a two-volume Collected Poems to his name and a monograph on his work, Peter Finch began his literary career in his twenties producing a poetry magazine on a Gestetner machine partly to publish his own verse. Second Aeon lasted from 1966 to 1975 and was Wales’ contribution to “the small press poetry revolution” sweeping swinging sixties Britain. What began as self-publishing, the first issue only included one other poet, by the time of the last bumper issue (268 pages in 1974) Second Aeon had achieved an international reputation. Amongst the poets published were – on the ‘avant-garde’ side – Charles Bukowski, Bob Cobbing, Jeff Nuttall and Chris Torrance, but there were also, among the more ‘traditional’ shall we say, poets such as Dannie Abse, Peter Redgrove, Edwin Morgan and J P Ward. The contributors are a roll call of the poets writing in that period. Remarkably, while editing the mag, Peter produced 75 other poetry publications. For this huge editorial work and massive contribution to the encouragement and dissemination of poetry in Wales, Peter Finch deserves a statue in Cathays Park in Cardiff. It would add life (another meaning of aeon) to those rather solemn Victorian civic figures in front of the National Museum.

The story of Second Aeon is told by Peter in Second Aeon: The International Poetry Avant-garde Meets the British Revival 1966-1975. For a detail history of Peter’s writing career, see his recent published memoir The Literary Business (Parthian Books).

You can also discover Peter’s extraordinary poetic output in his Collected Poems and Andrew Taylor’s accompanying critical volume There’s Everything to Play For: The Poetry of Peter Finch.

Accompanying photo by John Briggs.