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.

  • Gary Whitehead

    Gary Whitehead is an American poet, teacher and crossword constructor. His poetry collections include A Glossary of Chickens (2013); Measuring Cubits while the Thunder Claps (2008); and The Velocity of Dust (2004). His awards include a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. He is also a painter, and teacher of English and Creative Writing in New Jersey.

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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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