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.
-
Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen was born in 1893 in Oswestry. He enlisted in 1915, serving in France, then was admitted with shell shock to Craiglockhart War Hospital, where he met fellow poet, Siegfried Sassoon. He returned to the Front and was awarded the Military Cross in 1918, before being killed a week before Armistice. He became one of the greatest poets of the First World War, most of his poetry written between 1917 and 1918 and published posthumously.
Featured in
-
James P Lenfestey
James P Lenfestey is an American poet and former journalist based in Minneapolis who has published several collections including A Cartload of Scrolls:100 Poems in the Manner of T’ang Dynasty Poet Han-Shan (Holy Cow! Press, 2007). He chairs the Literary Witnesses poetry programme.
Featured in
-
Jenny Pagdin
Jenny Pagdin’s first collection is The Snow Globe, published by Nine Arches Press in 2024. A pamphlet Caldbeck (Eyewear, 2017) was shortlisted in the Mslexia pamphlet competition. Her poems have been highly commended and shortlisted in the Bridport Prize and published in magazines including Magma, Ambit, The Stand and Ink, Sweat & Tears, as well as in an Emma Press anthology.
Featured in
-
PK Page
PK Page (1916 – 2010) was born in Dorset and emigrated to Canada with her parents as a child. She published novels, poetry, essays and books for children. Her final poetry collection Coal and Roses (Porcupine’s Quill, 2009) was published shortly before her death aged 93. It was shortlisted for the Griffin International Poetry Prize.
Featured in
-
Mark Pajak
Mark Pajak was born in Merseyside. A pamphlet Spitting Distance was published by Smith Doorstop in 2016. His debut full collection Slide was published by Penguin in 2022 and was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize.
Featured in
-
Simon Palmer
Simon Palmer is a British watercolour artist who studied at Reigate Art School. In the 1970s he visited Lastingham, North Yorkshire and fell in love with the landscape that has been his inspiration ever since. For the past 40 years he has lived and worked in Wensleydale. His richly detailed work is informed by his love of English painters such as Samuel Palmer and Paul Nash.
Featured in
