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 over 850 historical and contemporary poets. In our pages you’ll find old favourites alongside twenty-first century voices – everyone from WH Auden to Belinda Zhawi. 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.
  • James Thomson

    James Thomson (1834 – 1882) was a Scottish journalist, poet and translator who wrote under the pen-name Bysshe Vanolis (chosen because of his admiration for the work of Shelley and the German poet Novalis). He grew up in an orphanage in London and is most often remembered for The City of Dreadful Night (written between 1870 and 1873)  which is an allegory depicting the struggles of the poor.

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  • Charles Tomlinson

    Charles Tomlinson (1927 – 2015) was a British poet, academic and translator. He was born in Stoke-on-Trent but spent much of his adult life in Gloucestershire. His first collection Relations and Contraries was published by Hand and Flower Press in 1951 and he went on to publish many more. His poems engage with intellectual ideas as well as with landscape and the natural world. Swimming Chenango Lake: Selected Poems was published after his death by Carcanet in 2018.

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  • Katie Tooke

    Katie Tooke is a graphic designer who has created a number of striking book covers for Picador, including Helen Oyemi’s White is for Witching.

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  • Jean Toomer

    Jean Toomer (1894 – 1967) was an important figure in African-American literature who wrote both poetry and novels. His most famous work is Cane, published in 1923, which is a novel comprising poems and short stories. He also wrote a long lyrical poem, Blue Meridian, which expresses his hopes and dreams for racial harmony. At the end of his life he became a Quaker and fell into a literary silence.

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  • Barry Tottle

    Lizzie Ginbey and Barry Tottle are graphic designers and printmakers living and working in the south west. They founded a successful graphic design agency before setting up a creative collaboration called ‘Inky Misdemeanors’.  Here the two produce work that covers a range of printmaking styles and subjects including landscape, travel, wildlife, architecture, folklore and animals. They favour lino-cutting, wood-block prints, as well as etching on Perspex or glass.

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  • Claudine Toutoungi

    Claudine Toutoungi is a poet and dramatist based in Cambridge. Her third and most recent collection is Emotional Support Horse (Carcanet, 2024). Her work has appeared in numerous journals and magazines and her plays have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

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