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 700 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.

  • Vita Sackville-West

    Vita Sackville-West (1892 – 1962) was an English novelist and poet, as well as being a renowned gardener who helped design and create the famous gardens at Sissinghurst in Kent. Her poetry often celebrates the English landscape and her long poem ‘The Land’ is the best-known example of this. She was also the model for the character Orlando in Virginia Woolf’s novel of that title.

    Featured in

  • Jacob Sam-La Rose

    Jacob Sam-La Rose was born in London. His poetry collection Breaking Silence (Bloodaxe, 2011) was shortlisted for several awards including the Forward Prize and his poems have been widely anthologised and published in journals. Jacob is actively involved in facilitating a range of creative writing and spoken word programmes in schools and arts centres across the UK.

    Featured in

  • Ana Sampson

    Ana Sampson grew up in Kent and studied English Literature at the University of Sheffield. After a career in publishing PR, she went on to edit her first anthology I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud (Michael O’Mara Books, 2009) which was the third best-selling poetry title of that year. Since then she has edited a number of highly-acclaimed anthologies, including most recently She is Fierce (Pan MacMillan, 2018).  Ana has appeared on television and radio discussing books and reading, and is a passionate advocate of the anthology form.

    Featured in

  • Fiona Sampson

    Fiona Sampson was born in London and is a poet and translator. She has published several poetry collections, including most recently The Catch (Chatto 2016). Her early career as a violinist has a strong influence on her poetic voice, which is characterised by the musicality of her lines.

    Featured in

  • Carl Sandburg

    Carl Sandburg (1878 – 1967) was an American writer who distinguished himself in the fields of poetry, history, biography, fiction, and music. He won two Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry – the first for Cornhuskers in 1919 and the second for his Complete Poems in 1950. According to one critic it was Sandburg who ‘put America on paper.’

    Featured in

  • Bill Sanderson

    Bill Sanderson has been a freelance illustrator for more than 40 years, working for magazines (including Time Out and The Listener), book publishers and designers. Creating jacket images for poetry books is a more recent development in his career and he has designed the covers for a number of collections by Felix Dennis.

    Featured in