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.
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Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892) is now regarded as one of America’s greatest poets, although largely unregarded in his lifetime. His collection, Leaves of Grass, was originally a self-published pamphlet of twelve poems which he expanded and revised frequently over his lifetime. A teacher and journalist, he was dedicated in later life to visiting the wounded of the Civil War, experience captured in his collection Drum Taps (1865).
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Hamish Whyte
Hamish Whyte is a Scottish poet who runs Mariscat Press and has edited numerous anthologies of Scottish poetry, as well as the work of his friend Edwin Morgan. His own poems have appeared in various Scottish magazines and Shoestring Press has published his three full collections, of which the most recent is Things We Never Knew (2016). He is a member of Edinburgh’s Shore Poets.
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Susan Wicks
Susan Wicks read French at university and has published eight collections of poetry, the first of which is Singing Underwater (Faber, 1992) and the most recent Dear Crane (Bloodaxe, 2021). She has also published novels, short stories and a collection of translations of the French poet Valerie Rouzeau, the latter shortlisted for an international Griffin Prize. She lives in Kent.
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Anna Wigley
Anna Wigley was born in Cardiff. Her award-winning poetry has appeared in a number of poetry magazines, and she won the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2000. She is the author of three collections of poetry, the latest being Waking in Winter (2009), published by Gomer Press. She also writes short stories.
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Ben Wilkinson
Ben Wilkinson published his debut collection of poems, Way More Than Luck, with Seren in 2018. His poetry has won prizes including a Northern Writers’ Award and the Poetry Business Book & Pamphlet Competition. A well-known critic, he reviews poetry for The Guardian and teaches at the University of Bolton. A second book of poems is due to appear in 2022.
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Robert Williams Parry
Robert Williams Parry (1884 – 1956) was a Welsh poet who was greatly influenced by Romantic poets such as Keats. Two volumes of his poetry were published: Yr Haf a cherddi Eraill (1924) and Cerddi’r gaeaf (1952). His breakthrough came when he won the Chair at the National Eisteddfod in 1910 with his poem ‘Yr Haf’ (‘The Summer’). This poem and ‘The Fox’ are probably his best-known.
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