Candlestick Press – 'Instead of a card' poetry pamphlets | UK based independent publisher

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.

  • Derek Walcott

    Derek Walcott (1930 – 2017) published 24 collections of poetry, as well as dramas and works of criticism. He grew up in St Lucia and divided his time between Trinidad and Boston University where he taught Creative Writing. His collection, White Egrets (2010) won the T S Eliot Prize and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992.

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  • Steve Waling

    Steve Waling is a British poet who was born in Accrington and lives in Manchester. He has published several collections, including Calling Myself On The Phone (Smith/Doorstop, 2003) and Travelator (Salt 2007). He has worked as a teacher of creative writing and as a mentor to African writers via the British Council’s Crossing Borders project.

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  • Claire Walker

    Claire Walker is a British poet, writer and editor based in Worcestershire. Her work has been published in journals and magazines including Poetry Wales, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal and Spelt. Her most recent publication is Collision (Against the Grain Press, 2019). A pamphlet Somewhere Between Rose and Black (V. Press, 2017) was shortlisted for Best Poetry Pamphlet in the 2018 Saboteur Awards.

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  • Jane Walker

    Jane Walker studied illustration and printmaking in Dundee and now works mostly as a printmaker using the reduction linocut technique. Her work reflects her fascination with still life and she uses everyday objects (jugs, flowers, cups) to capture a sense of the past. She is a member of Oxford Printmakers.

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  • Zoë Walkington

    Zoë Walkington has had poetry published in Magma, Hinterland, Strix and The North. She was one of the winners of the Poetry Business International Pamphlet Competition in 2022 with her debut pamphlet I hate to be the one to tell you this. Her second pamphlet Missing Person is due out in April 2026, published by Smith Doorstop.

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  • Peter Wallis

    Peter Wallis is Poet in Residence at his local allotments and is currently collaborating on a project, Poets as Gardeners. He is author of Half Other (The Hippocrates Press, 2023) and Articles of Twinship (Bare Fiction, 2015). He has been a Jessie Kesson Finalist Fellow at Moniack Mhor, and a Hawthornden Fellow. He is Submissions Editor for the UK charity Poems in the Waiting Room and was a prize-winner in the National Poetry Competition 2016.

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