Candlestick Press
Biographies
Here you can find out more about the huge range of poets we feature in our pamphlets and the artists whose work appears on our beautiful covers.
We’ve now published poems by almost 800 historical and contemporary poets. In our pages you’ll find old favourites alongside twenty-first century voices – everyone from WH Auden to Benjamin Zephaniah. Although our emphasis is on British poetry, you’ll also find Irish, American and Australian writers.
We hope these pages will encourage you to explore further the work of a poet you’ve enjoyed in one of our pamphlets.
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Ciaran Berry
Ciaran Berry was born in Donegal, Ireland and now lives in the US. He has published three poetry collections including most recently Liner Notes (The Gallery Press, 2018). His style is often conversational, but he is able to vividly capture other lives, such as those of wild creatures.
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James Berry
James Berry (1924 – 2017) was a Jamaican poet who settled in Britain in the 1940s. His poetry is notable for using a mixture of standard English and Jamaican Patois. He was at the forefront of championing British/West Indian writing and published numerous poetry collections and books for children in his long life. Bloodaxe published his Selected Poems (A Story I Am In) in 2011.
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Liz Berry
Liz Berry was born in the Black Country and now lives in Birmingham. Her work is recognisable for its distinctive usage of Black Country dialect and vocabulary. Her pamphlet, The Patron Saint of Schoolgirls, was published in 2010 and her debut collection, Black Country (2014), won the Forward Poetry Prize for Best First Collection in 2014.
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Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry is a prolific American poet and novelist who has published over 50 books of poetry, essays and fiction. He lives in Kentucky where he has run a farm for over 40 years and is also a passionate environmentalist. He has won numerous awards including the TS Eliot Prize and in 2010 received the National Humanities Medal from Barack Obama. His most recent poetry collection is This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems (Counterpoint LLC, 2014).
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Clare Best
Clare Best is a poet and poetry tutor whose first full collection Excisions was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize. Her third and most recent collection is Beyond the Gate (Worple Press, 2023). In 2020 Clare completed an MA in Opera Making at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and was a Fellow there from 2020 – 2021.
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John Betjeman
John Betjeman (1906 – 1984) was a popular poet, writer and broadcaster, and passionate defender of Victorian architecture. His Collected Poems was published in 1958 and his verse autobiography, Summoned by Bells, in 1960. He was knighted in 1969, and became Poet Laureate in 1972.
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