Moschatel Press

Last updated

Moschatel Press is a small press publisher producing artist's books and poetry collections. [1] It was founded in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, in 1973, by the artist Laurie Clark and the Scottish poet Thomas A. Clark and moved to Pittenweem, Fife in 2002. [2] The press "is named after adoxa moschatellina, a plant known locally as Town Clock for its four-way green flower heads, with a fifth flower facing the sky." [3] Their main line is in "publishing minimal texts, visual poetry and the like in small neat booklets and postcards." [4]

Contents

They have published work by Ian Hamilton Finlay among other artists; although most of their output is their own work [5] which frequently consists of reflections on nature. [6] A treadle press they were given as a wedding present inspired the founding of Moschatel Press, allowing them to print poems and send them to friends. [7] The treadle press was replaced by a tabletop Adana printing press.

Founders

Thomas A. Clark was born in Greenock, Scotland in 1944 and left school, "barely literate", at 15. He then worked in factories and warehouses for the next eight year, before realising "there was a world outside to be lived in". [8]

Clark moved to England in 1967.

Laurie Clark was born in New York in 1949 and married Thomas A. Clark in 1972.

In 1986 the Clarks established the Cairn Gallery initially in Days Mill, Nailsworth, and subsequently in Pittenweem. The Gallery an artist-run space, for land art, minimalism and lyrical or poetic conceptualism. [2]

Publications

The list of publications is first derived from the Moschatel Press Bibliography published by the press itself for an exhibition at the Coracle Press, Camberwell, from 1 December 1979 to 5 January 1980. The list of subsequent publications is not definitive. All works are by Thomas A. Clark unless otherwise stated.

A box set of 67 publications was issued in 1982. Further collections were issued as "A Box Of Landscapes" in 2010 and 2016, comprising publications spanning forty years of the Moschatel Press and others.

In addition to his work with Moschatel Press, Thomas A. Clark led a group of artists installing artworks in the new Stobhill Hospital, Glasgow for its opening in 2009. [9]

Publication YearTitleAuthorArtistNotes
1973Fill In The DrawingLaurie Clark
1973FritillaryLaurie ClarkPublication year not printed
1973Folding The Last SheepPublication year not printed
1973An Epitaph
1973The Garden
1974Horizon
1974Four Flowers
1974A Wee Tot For CatullusJonathan Williams
1974SnowdropIan Hamilton FinlayPublication year not printed
1974IrisLaurie Clark
1974Shape & ShadeLaurie ClarkPublication year not printed
1974SeptemberPublication year not printed
1974Not Now Cid Corman
1974A Basket of LandscapesLaurie ClarkPublication year not printed
1974PebblesLaurie ClarkPublication year not printed
1975Glade
1975Deserts of AfghanistanHelen Williams
1975L'Invitation Au VoyageLaurie ClarkPublication year not printed
1975AnemoneLaurie ClarkPublication year not printed
1975Moss StitchLaurie Clark
1975A Vase Of DaffodilsLaurie ClarkPublication year not printed
1976Petits Fours
1976Painted LadyLaurie Clark
1976Two HorizonsLaurie ClarkPublication year not printed
1976Clare's "Journey Out Of Essex"Simon CuttsLaurie Clark
1976ThrumsLaurie ClarkPublication year not printed
1976Hart's TongueLaurie Clark
1977FoliationsLaurie Clark
1977Two Acres
1977The Bright GladeLaurie Clark
1977A Meadow VoyageLaurie ClarkPublication year not printed
1977Haystacks and IslandsLaurie Clark
1978Nine RosesLaurie Clark
1978Fly Patterns For Still WatersLaurie Clark
1978GatheringsLaurie ClarkPublication year not printed
1978Water CressesLaurie Clark
1978QuatrefoilsLaurie ClarkPrinted for South West Review; publication year not printed
1979After PissarroLaurie ClarkPublication year not printed
1979Two Evergreen HorizonsLaurie Clark
1979A Glade Of Lances
1979The Dappled GladeLaurie Clark
1979StyleLaurie Clark
1979Of LeavesLaurie Clark
1979Proverbs Of The MeadowLaurie ClarkPublication year not printed
1979Four English FlowersLaurie Clark
1979From A Glossary Of Old Scots
1979Moschatel Press Bibliographywith introduction by Alan TuckerLaurie Clark600 copies
1979A Rock PoolLaurie Clark
1979In The Scottish Lowlands
1979A Short Tour of the HighlandsLaurie Clark
1979The Frog Leaps Thirteen TimesLaurie Clark
1980Four Horizons
1980Tansy ButtonsLaurie Clark
1980A Herb Garden250 signed and numbered copies
1980Adjectives For GrassesLaurie Clark
1980Proverbs Of The MountainLaurie Clark300 signed and numbered copies
1980Parenthetical LandLaurie ClarkCard for opening of Alan & Joan Tucker's new bookshop, Stroud, Glos
1981A Delphinium Border200 numbered copies
1981DicotyledonsLaurie Clark
1981From A Bookseller's Catalogue
1981Four Fruits150 numbered copies
1981Metamorphosis
1981A Moth Glade
1981Photography In The Open AirLaurie Clark
1981Ruin WoodLaurie Clark200 numbered copies
1981Sixteen Sonnets
1981Solos, Duets & QuartetsSimon CuttsLaurie Clark125 signed and numbered copies
1981The TapestryLaurie Clark
1981Three Triolets
1982A DedicationLaurie Clark
1982By Footpath & Stile(no text)Laurie Clark300 copies
1982For Returning Warriors /In Memoriam
1982Geum RivaleLaurie Clark200 numbered copies
1982The LacemakerLaurie Clark
1982Wayward DefinitionsLaurie Clark200 copies; expanded edition published as "Vagrant Definitions" by Membrane Press, Shorewood, WI, 1984
1982Three Colours200 numbered colours
1982Moschatel PressStuart MillsLaurie ClarkEssay for University of Warwick Library exhibition of books, cards and prints by Thomas A. Clark and Laurie Clark
1982Twenty Four Sentences About The Forest
1982Under The BraeLaurie Clark
1983In A Country Churchyard(no text)Laurie Clark200 copies
1983Pauses and DigressionsLaurie Clark300 copies of which 12 are signed and hand-coloured
1983The Blue Boat, No. 1Robert LaxLaurie ClarkPublished as an occasional magazine
1983The Blue Boat, No. 2Jean Follain
1984Far Oak RidgeLaurie Clark
1985On Greta BridgePublished jointly with Underwich Editions, Canada; 500 copies
1986The Idle RoadLaurie Clark250 copies of which 20 are signed and hand-coloured
1987Six TrioletsLaurie Clark
1989Through White Villages
1989The Flowers of Ben LawersLaurie Clark
1990Coire Fhionn LochanLaurie Clark
1990From Sea To Sea
1991Forest, Mountain, City
1991The Philosophy Of FurnitureSimon CuttsLaurie Clark
1991The Teachings of Huang Po
1992Of Shade And Shadow
1992On A Line From Yeats
1993A Collect
1994Gold And SilverLaurie ClarkChristmas Card
1994Larch Covert
1995Apples And Intervals
1995Glade
1995The Shape ChangerLaurie Clark
1995Three Exercises
1995Two Landscapes
1996Morning, Evening
1997A Standard Of MusicLaurie Clark
1997An Interval
1997May The Best Hour
1997Taking Up Again
1997Three Wishes
1997A Melting of SnowflakesChristmas Card
1998At Dusk & At Dawn
1998Four GreetingsLaurie ClarkChristmas Card
1999Forest Without Trees
1999Shieling In The Brambles
1999Stone
1999Here is RosemaryLaurie ClarkChristmas Card
2000Branches and QuincesChristmas Card
2001Twelve ProverbsLaurie Clark
2001SparrowsLaurie ClarkChristmas Card
2004Gorse River SequenceLaurie Clarkfor Peter Larkin
2004The Year Of The Water RailLaurie Clark
2005Frost & SnowLaurie Clarkfor Richard Valentine (Secondhand Bookseller, Nailsworth)
2005HarebellLaurie Clark
2006Blue
2006Hazel Wood
2006Wild StrawberriesLaurie Clark
2007Dusk
2007Floating Island
2007Flow
2007Little Burn
2007Four Fruits (2)
2007In The Black Wood
2007Tràigh Balla
2007Whenever You Linger
2006/7Postcardsset of 6
2008Colour in the island
2008From Many Waters
2008Learning to be Blue
2008of Woods & Water
2008Sgiath nan Tarmachan
2008Some Imaginary Flowersfor Eck
2008Spring Summer
2008Still Life with Fruit and Flower
2008Taste is to Whisk
2009A Lamp of Fish OilChristmas Card
2010SylviidaeLaurie Clark
2010Delight; Fragrance; ThriftLaurie Clark3 card set
2010Suspicion of BeautyLaurie Clark5 card set
2010/2011Leave-Taking; Clearing; CrocusLaurie Clark3 card set
2011DipperLaurie Clark
2011Mint
2011Unfolding BrightnessChristmas Card
2012Gaelic Flowers
2013JayLaurie Clark
2014The Grove Of Delight
2015Mist & MountainLaurie Clark
2015The Quiet IslandLaurie Clark
2015WithLaurie Clark
2016Dove
2016Star of BethlehemChristmas Card
2017The Fort Of Stillness
undatedAn Lochan Uaine
undatedAn Affinity Of Eye And PetalLaurie Clark
undatedAdoxaPrinted in Fife

Other published works by Thomas A. Clark include:

Other publications featuring drawings by Laurie Clark include:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Davie</span> English poet

Donald Alfred Davie, FBA was an English Movement poet, and literary critic. His poems in general are philosophical and abstract, but often evoke various landscapes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian Hamilton Finlay</span> Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener

Ian Hamilton Finlay, CBE was a Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Muldoon</span> Irish poet

Paul Muldoon is an Irish poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edwin Morgan (poet)</span> Scottish poet and essayist

Edwin George Morgan was a Scottish poet and translator associated with the Scottish Renaissance. He is widely recognised as one of the foremost Scottish poets of the 20th century. In 1999, Morgan was made the first Glasgow Poet Laureate. In 2004, he was named as the first Makar or National Poet for Scotland.

William Sydney Graham was a Scottish poet, who was often associated with Dylan Thomas and the neo-romantic group of poets. Graham's poetry was mostly overlooked in his lifetime; however, partly thanks to the support of Harold Pinter, his work was eventually acknowledged. He was represented in the second edition of the Penguin Book of Contemporary Verse and the Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Kinsella</span> Irish poet (1928–2021)

Thomas Kinsella was an Irish poet, translator, editor, and publisher. Born outside Dublin, Kinsella attended University College Dublin before entering the civil service. He began publishing poetry in the early 1950s and, around the same time, translated early Irish poetry into English. In the 1960s, he moved to the United States to teach English at universities including Temple University. Kinsella continued to publish steadily until the 2010s.

Michael Peter Leopold Hamburger was a noted German-British translator, poet, critic, memoirist and academic. He was known in particular for his translations of Friedrich Hölderlin, Paul Celan, Gottfried Benn and W. G. Sebald from German, and his work in literary criticism. The publisher Paul Hamlyn (1926–2001) was his younger brother.

The T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is a prize for poetry awarded by the T. S. Eliot Foundation. For many years it was awarded by the Eliots' Poetry Book Society (UK) to "the best collection of new verse in English first published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland" in any particular year. The Prize was inaugurated in 1993 in celebration of the Poetry Book Society's 40th birthday and in honour of its founding poet, T. S. Eliot. Since its inception, the prize money was donated by Eliot's widow, Mrs Valerie Eliot and more recently it has been given by the T. S. Eliot Estate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iain Crichton Smith</span> Scottish writer

Iain Crichton Smith, was a Scottish poet and novelist, who wrote in both English and Gaelic. He was born in Glasgow, but moved to the Isle of Lewis at the age of two, where he and his two brothers were brought up by their widowed mother in the small crofting town of Bayble, which also produced Derick Thomson. Educated at the University of Aberdeen, Crichton Smith took a degree in English, and after serving in the National Service Army Education Corps, went on to become a teacher. He taught in Clydebank, Dumbarton and Oban from 1952, retiring to become a full-time writer in 1977, although he already had many novels and poems published.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C. H. Sisson</span> British writer

Charles Hubert Sisson, CH, usually cited as C. H. Sisson, was a British writer, best known as a poet and translator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Les Murray (poet)</span> Australian poet and critic (1938-2019)

Leslie Allan Murray was an Australian poet, anthologist and critic. His career spanned over 40 years and he published nearly 30 volumes of poetry as well as two verse novels and collections of his prose writings.

David Wheatley is an Irish poet and critic. He was born in Dublin and studied at Trinity College, Dublin, where he edited Icarus. Wheatley is the author of four volumes of poetry with Gallery Press, as well as several chapbooks. He has also edited the work of James Clarence Mangan, and features in the Bloodaxe anthology The New Irish Poets, and the Wake Forest Irish Poetry Series Vol. 1.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Jeremy Hooker FRSL FLSW is an English poet, critic, teacher, and broadcaster. Central to his work are a concern with the relationship between personal identity and place.

The Jargon Society is an independent press founded by the American poet Jonathan Williams. Jargon is one of the oldest and most prestigious small presses in the United States and has published seminal works of the American literary avant-garde, including books by Charles Olson, Louis Zukofsky, Paul Metcalf, James Broughton, and Williams himself, as well as sui generis books of folk art such as White Trash Cooking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Price (poet)</span> British poet, novelist, and translator (born 1966)

Richard John Price is a British poet, novelist, and translator.

Grevel Charles Garrett Lindop is an English poet, academic and literary critic.

David Morley is a British poet, professor, and ecologist. His best-selling textbook The Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing has been translated into many languages. His major poetry collections include FURY, Scientific Papers, The Invisible Kings, Enchantment, The Gypsy and the Poet, and The Magic of What's There are published by Carcanet Press. The Invisible Gift: Selected Poems was published by Carcanet and won The Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry. He was awarded a Cholmondeley Award by The Society of Authors for his body of work and contribution to poetry. He is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature. FURY published in August 2020 was a Poetry Book Society Choice and shortlisted for The Forward Prize for Best Collection.

Peter Dent is an English editor, poet, and former school teacher whose poetry has moved from spare notations to linguistic experiments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Weissbort</span> British writer

Daniel Weissbort was a poet, translator, multilingual academic and founder and editor of the literary magazine Modern Poetry in Translation. He died at the age of 78, and was buried in the Brompton Cemetery in west London.

References

  1. Scottish Poetry Library (c. 2006). "Poets' A-Z " Thomas A Clark". Scottish Poetry Library. Archived from the original on 11 June 2007. Retrieved 15 February 2007.
  2. 1 2 "Thomas A. Clark | Poetry | Scottish Poetry Library". www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk. Retrieved 5 August 2017.
  3. Elizabeth James (c. 2001). "Laurie Clark: Fourteen days in North Uist" (PDF). Visual Research Centre. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 February 2006. Retrieved 15 February 2007.
  4. Peter Finch, ed. (1974). "Small press scene : received late". Second Aeon. 19–21 (Final issue). Retrieved 18 February 2006.
  5. COPAC (2007). "COPAC brief record display : Search terms: Moschatel Press, Scotland" (Database search result (HTML)). COPAC . Retrieved 18 February 2007.
  6. For an on-line example of their themes see: Clark, Thomas A. (2007). "Thomas A. Clark". Thomas A. Clark. Archived from the original (FLASH) on 11 February 2007. Retrieved 18 February 2007.
  7. Poetry, Oxford. "Oxford Poetry — Since 1910". www.oxfordpoetry.co.uk. Retrieved 5 August 2017.
  8. Some Particulars. Millerton, NY and Bletchley, Bucks: The Jargon Society. 1971. pp. End Cover.
  9. "Thomas A Clark – New Stobhill Hospital Glasgow". peterfoolen.blogspot.co.uk. Retrieved 4 August 2017.