John Moat

The Best (including quite the worst) of Didymus

Here is a collection of John Moat's 'Didymus' columns which have been published in Resurgence magazine for nearly thirty years. Selected by the author himself, this book has made me laugh out loud, shed the odd tear and ponder: is John being funny, or is he being serious? Sometimes it is difficult to tell - but always his writing is both simple and profound and something I never tire of.
Satish Kumar, Editor, Resurgence magazine

John Moat's book is a masterly blend of warm Irish wit and cool English satire, tapped to perfection in the wordsmithy of a superb poet; I've been a fan of his for over twenty-five years.
Adam Thorpe, author of Between Each Breath, Ulverton, etc.

"If aliens from Fairfax senior's acre of Moon visited Earth and required an operating manual on the wonderful meandering of a human mind, they should look no further than John Moat's inspired Didymus collection"
Jo Fairfax (sculptor son of John fairfax, the dedicatee of this book who has recently begun property speculating onn the Moon)

"It is difficult to imagine how far the intellectual content of this collection would have been extended had the author been prepared to confer more closely with myself"
F R Dundas

Published by Green Books at £7.99

ISBN 978-1-900322-22-5

The Founding of Arvon

A Memoir of the Early Years of the Arvon Foundation

The Arvon Foundation is a charity running residential writing courses at centres across England. In an informal, creative atmosphere, novice writers have the opportunity to be mentored by experienced, published authors.

In this lively memoir, John Moat recalls how in 1968 he and John Fairfax created Arvon as a reaction against what they saw as a staid, dogmatic approach to teaching poetry. The infectious energy and idealism of those early days led to the rapid sense of their ideas and the establishment of the courses into a self sustaining, funded enterprise.

Today, the Arvon Foundation is one of the country's most famous and prestigious creative writing organizations, with centres at Lumb Bank in West Yorkshire, Moniack Mhor in Invernesshire, The Hurst in Shropshire and Totleigh Barton in Devon. This is an inspiring story about creativity, imagination and self-discovery.

Published by Francis Lincoln at £12.99

ISBN 13:978-0-7112-2588-6

Hermes and Magdalen

Hermes & Magdalen is a sequence of forty-three poems--"asides and dreams"--which marks the culmination of this poet's fifty year quest to find new expression in poetry of the creative balance of feminine and masculine at the heart of all meaning. In alchemical texts the number 43 (the four and the three come together) is an expression of the ‘estate of marriage’, the Mysterium Coniunctionis. To develop his vision the poet has also created twenty etchings/drypoints which are integral to the verses.

About this sequence of poems the author Lindsay Clarke writes: "When a poet weds his craft to a vision that both quickens the senses and penetrates the depth of things, then something marvellous happens. John Moat is a maker of such marvels, and his book is alchemical gold."

Of the etchings the author and painter John Lane writes: "In the footsteps of Blake and Rossetti, John Moat has produced a remarkable folio of his own. The etchings are imaginative and arresting. I love them for their unforced originality."

John Moat is the author of nineteen books, including poetry, novels, and short stories. Hermes & Magdalen is the third published by Typographeum, the two earlier ones being Three Stories (1995) and Skeleton Key (1997).

This book has been hand-set and printed letterpress by R. T. Risk in an edition of 150 copies. It is bound in a silk-finish Japanese cloth and has complementary end-papers and a printed label on the back-strip. There are 96 pages. The paper is from Strathmore. The type-face is 12-point Bembo. The illustrations (reduced) have been reproduced by Senecio Press, Charlbury, England.

An additional ten numbered copies, signed by the author, and including one new original etching (limited to 20 copies printed by Gareth John Jones), have been specially bound and slip-cased by Fine Binders of Wellingborough, England. The cloth is from Colibri and the end-papers are hand-made by Saunders. A further three copies, lettered A-C and also signed and boxed, include a full suite of the original etchings.

This book has been supported by the Arts Council, England.

ISBN 0-930126-62-9 December 2004

Ordinary edition: £50/$95

Signed copies (numbered): £200/$375

Signed copies (lettered): £1200/$2250

Current Publication