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.

  • Len Garrison

    Len Garrison (1943 – 2003) was born in Jamaica and moved to London in the 1950s. He was a community activist, poet and educationist who championed black writing and co-founded the Black Cultural Archives and the African and Caribbean Educational Resource (Acer). A poetry collection Beyond Babylon  was published by Black Star in  1985.

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  • Victoria Gatehouse

    Victoria Gatehouse is a zoologist, poet and children’s writer based in the Pennines. Her pamphlet The Mechanics of Love (Smith|Doorstop) was selected as a ‘Laureate’s Choice’ by Carol Ann Duffy in 2019.  Her poems have been published in many journals and anthologies including The North, Magma, Mslexia, Anthropocene, Butcher’s Dog, The Rialto, Spelt, She is Fierce and After Sylvia. She is a three-time winner of The Poetry News Members’ Competition and was highly commended in the Gingko Prize 2023.  Her debut collection is forthcoming in 2024.

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  • Kahlil Gibran

    Kahlil Gibran (1883 – 1931) was a Lebanese painter and poet who spent most of his life in the US and wrote in English. His simple and direct style was influential in the transformation of Arabic literature in the early 20th century. His best-known book is probably The Prophet (Alfred A Knopf, 1923) a series of prose poetry fables which has been translated into over 100 languages and has never been out of print.

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  • Elizabeth Gibson

    Elizabeth Gibson is a British poet and spoken-word performer based in the north west. Her debut poetry collection A love the weight of an animal was published by Confingo Publishing in 2025. Her work has appeared widely in magazines and she has collaborated with a number of organisations, including Manchester Museum.

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  • Wilfrid Gibson

    Wilfrid Gibson (1878 – 1962) was a British poet born in Hexham who also wrote plays and prose works. His early collections were published by Elkin Matthews including Friends in 1916. His poetry often features Northumberland, taking in the drama of the landscape and the working lives of fishermen and miners, alluding to the ballad traditions of the borders.

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  • James Stanley Gilbert

    James Stanley Gilbert (1855 – 1906) was an American poet. He was born in New England but went to Panama to work as a shipping agent in 1886. His collection Panama Patchwork (1894) reflects this phase of his life and led to his fans describing him as the ‘poet laureate of Panama’.  His premature death was due to malaria.

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