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.

  • CK Williams

    CK Williams (1936 – 2015) was an American poet and one of the most widely-respected of his generation. His poems are distinctive for many reasons, including for their very long lines which have an almost prose-like quality. He published many collections, starting with The Lies (1969) and including The Singing which won the National Book Award in 2003. Williams taught at Princeton University until just before his death.

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  • Indigo Williams

    Indigo Williams is a British performance poet who has appeared at Glastonbury and on BBC Radio 4’s Bespoken Word. Based in south London, she is also an active spoken word educator, working with children and young people. She runs a full-time secondary school poetry programme in partnership with Goldsmiths University.

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  • Morag Williams

    Morag Williams is a painter and illustrator based in Nottingham. After studying fine art in Moscow, she moved to Nottingham Trent for further studies. Her paintings explore our relationship with an ever-growing footprint on the natural world. Her work includes a mural commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution and the National Sea Turtle monument in Guyana. She has also illustrated all Guyana’s known turtles for the World Wildlife Fund.

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  • Emily Wills

    Emily Wills lives in Gloucestershire where she works as a GP. She won the Frogmore prize in 2012 and 2013. She is the author of two collections, Diverting the Sea (2000) and Developing the Negative (2008), and a pamphlet, Unmapped (2014), all published by The Rialto.

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  • Jackie Wills

    Jackie Wills is a British poet who has published several collections. Powder Tower (Arc, 1995) was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and her most recent Woman’s Head As Jug is influenced by her collaboration with the visual artist Jane Fordham. She has held two residencies at the Royal Literary Fund and lives and works in Brighton.

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  • David Wilson

    David Wilson is a British poet and novelist living in North Yorkshire. He has climbed extensively in the UK, in the Alps and further afield. His debut poetry pamphlet Slope was published by SmithDoorstop in 2016 and The Equilibrium Line appeared in 2019.

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