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.

  • Lucille Clifton

    Lucille Clifton (1936 – 2010) was a prolific American poet and children’s writer from Buffalo, New York who was discovered as a poet by Langston Hughes. Her work focuses particularly on African-American experience and family life. The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton was published by BOA Editions in 2012. In 2010, she was awarded the Robert Frost Medal for lifetime achievement by the Poetry Society of America.

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  • Rachael Clyne

    Rachael Clyne is a poet based in the west of England. Her first collection Singing at the Bone Tree (Indigo Dreams, 2014) explores mankind’s damaged connection with nature. A second You’ll Never Be Anyone Else was published by Seren in 2023 and explores themes of childhood, relationships and ageing.

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  • Christine Coates

    Christine Coates, a South African poet and writer, holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town. Her poems and stories have been published in various local and international literary journals. She has published two collections of poetry; Homegrown (Modjaji Books, 2014) and Fire Drought Water (Damselfly Press, 2018). Her debut collection Homegrown received an honourable mention from the Glenna Luschei Prize. A new collection is forthcoming.

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  • Mandy Coe

    Mandy Coe is a poet and educator, writing for both adults and children and regularly running workshops in libraries and schools. She has published eight books, including several poetry collections with Shoestring Press. Pinning the Tail on the Donkey (Spike Books) was shortlisted for the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize.

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  • Wanda Coleman

    Wanda Coleman (1946 – 2013) was a prolific writer and poet who spent much of her life in Los Angeles. Her work is often political, focusing on issues including racism, female experience and the struggles of living below the poverty line. Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems was published posthumously in 2022 by Black Sparrow Press and draws on four decades of her work.

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  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

    Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834), poet, critic and philosopher, was one of the Lake Poets.  Lyrical Ballads, published in 1798, a collaboration between Coleridge and Wordsworth, is widely acknowledged as representing the start of the Romantic Movement. Some of his best-known works include The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan and the prose work Biographia Literaria (1817).  An opium addict for much of his lifetime, he died in 1834.

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