Draft:Mark Hyatt
British writer and poet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mark Hyatt (1940–1972) was a British poet and writer. Love, Leda, his only known novel, was published posthumously in 2023.
 | Draft article not currently submitted for review.
This is a draft Articles for creation (AfC) submission. It is not currently pending review. While there are no deadlines, abandoned drafts may be deleted after six months. To edit the draft click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window. To be accepted, a draft should:
It is strongly discouraged to write about either yourself or your business or employer. If you do so, you must declare it. Where to get help
How to improve a draft
You can also browse Wikipedia:Featured articles and Wikipedia:Good articles to find examples of Wikipedia's best writing on topics similar to your proposed article. Improving your odds of a speedy review To improve your odds of a faster review, tag your draft with relevant WikiProject tags using the button below. This will let reviewers know a new draft has been submitted in their area of interest. For instance, if you wrote about a female astronomer, you would want to add the Biography, Astronomy, and Women scientists tags. Editor resources
Last edited by Citation bot (talk | contribs) 53 days ago. (Update) |
Mark Hyatt | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1940 Tooting, London, United Kingdom |
| Died | 1972 (aged 31–32) Lancashire, United Kingdom |
| Cause of death | Suicide |
| Resting place | Streatham Cemetery |
| Occupations | Writer, poet |
| Notable work | Love, Leda |
Biography
Hyatt was born in 1940, in Tooting, South London.[1] His father was a street merchant and his mother, who was Romani, died when Hyatt was five.[1] Hyatt had little formal education,[2] and was taught how to read and write as an adult by novelist Cressida Lindsay, who he met at a gay bar in Soho in 1960.[3] In 1962, Hyatt and Lindsay had a son, Dylan.[4][5] Hyatt had a relationship with publisher and author Anthony Blond (who also fathered a child with Lindsay).[4] From 1968 until shortly before his death in 1972, Hyatt lived with his partner Donald "Atom" Haworth in a cottage in Belthorn, Lancashire.[5] By early 1972, Haworth and Hyatt had split, and Hyatt moved to a bedsit in Manchester.[5]
Hyatt's poetry first found an audience in Children of Albion: Poetry of the Underground in Britain,[5] an anthology associated with the burgeoning British Poetry Revival movement.[6]
Hyatt was a heroin addict.[7] He had been imprisoned twice – once in 1966 for "stealing flowers" and once after being suspected of smuggling currency[5] (Hyatt was actually smuggling LSD at the time).[4]
Hyatt committed suicide in 1972, overdosing on aspirin and sleeping pills.[8] On 30 April, his body was found in a cave near Entwistle Reservoir in Lancashire.[5] Friends of Hyatts, Barry MacSweeney and J. H. Prynne (both fellow poets) had attempted to dissuade Hyatt from ending his own life, to no avail.[1] Hyatt entrusted Prynne with around 1600 pages of his writing for Prynne to photocopy.[5] A chapbook of his poems, How Odd was published posthumously in 1973, by MacSweeney and Andrew Cozier.[2]
Love, Leda, Hyatt's only known novel, was published on 21 January 2023 by Peninsula Press.[9][10] It is unclear exactly when Hyatt wrote the novel, but it is thought to have been penned before the Sexual Offences Act 1967, which legalised homosexual acts in the United Kingdom.[1] The novel follows Leda, a young working-class gay man living as a bohemian in Soho.[11] While not strictly autobiographical, much of the novel reflects Hyatt's own life and experiences.[5] The novel was published in the US in 2025 by Nightboat Books,[12] who also published a collection of Hyatt's poetry, So Much for Life, in 2023.[13]
Bibliography
Prose
- "Randle's Vision" (1971)
- Love, Leda (2023)
Poetry
- How Odd (1973)
- Eleven Poems (1974)
- A Different Mercy (1976)
- So Much for Life (2023)