John Digby was born in 1938. He left school at fifteen and spent five years as a keeper at London Zoo. The Structure of Bifocal Distance, his first collection of poems – described as ‘a triumph of vision’ by Nathaniel Tarn – appeared in 1974. He began to make collages in the early 1970s. Sailing Away from Night, poems and collages (Anvil in England, Kayak Books in the USA), was published in 1978, and To Amuse a Shrinking Sun in 1985. With his wife Joan Digby he wrote The Collage Manual, an illustrated guide to the work of contemporary collage artists, published in 1985 by Thames & Hudson. He lives in Oyster Bay, NY.