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.

  • Margaret Atwood

    Margaret Atwood is an internationally renowned writer from Canada, more famous for her many award-winning novels than for her poetry. Nevertheless, she has published eighteen collections, of which the first was Double Persephone. This was self-published in 1961 before any of her novels had appeared. She has won numerous international awards and is also a critic, teacher and environmental activist.

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  • WH Auden

    Wystan Hugh Auden (1907 – 1973) was a poet, playwright, critic and librettist. He grew up in Birmingham, England, but later became an American citizen. He became familiar with modernist poetry while studying at Oxford and in 1930 TS Eliot helped him publish his first collection. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948.

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  • Andre Bagoo

    Andre Bagoo is a Trinidadian poet and writer, the author of four books of poems including BURN (Shearsman, 2015) and Pitch Lake (Peepal Tree, 2017), as well as the essay collection The Undiscovered Country (Peepal Tree, 2020).

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  • Li Bai

    Li Bai (701 – 762) also known as Li Po was a major Chinese poet. Along with his friend Du Fu he was the most prominent figure in the flourishing of poetry during the Tang Dynasty.  His work was brought to prominence in the West by translations: Ezra Pound’s Cathay (1915) and Amy Lowell’s Fir-Flower Tablets (1921).

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  • Panya Banjoko

    Panya Banjoko is a writer, storyteller and performance poet who performed at the 2012 Olympics. Her first published work was ‘Brain Drain’ published in IC3– An Anthology of New Black Writing In Britain (Penguin 2000). Her second, ‘Rasta in the Millennium’ was published by the Millennium Commission. She also writes for children and her work has featured in numerous anthologies.

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  • Anna Barker

    Anna Barker is a poet, novelist and short story writer who largely takes inspiration from the natural world. Her first novel received a Betty Trask award from the Society of Authors. She teaches creative writing and academic writing to Masters and PhD students. Her debut poetry collection, Book of Crow, was published by Indigo Dreams in November 2023.

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