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 800 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.
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Hugh Ribbans
Hugh Ribbans trained at Canterbury College of Art where he specialised in relief printmaking. He now produces woodcuts and linocuts, mixing heavily grained wood – often driftwood – and lino in his prints. His subjects are frequently animals and birds, using a stylised treatment much influenced by ethnic art and his graphic background. He has exhibited at the Barbican Gallery, the National Print Exhibition, the Printmakers Council Open, The Society of Wood Engravers and the Society of Wildlife Artists.
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Maureen Richardson
Maureen Richardson (1943 – 2020) was born in Tyneside and later moved to Nottingham to take up a post as a community worker. It was here that she followed her passion for writing and became a successful Creative Writing Tutor while publishing her own short stories and poems. She was an active environmental campaigner and appeared regularly on radio and TV. In the last years of her life she was an enthusiastic member of Our Dementia Choir which was the subject of a BBC documentary.
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Anne Ridler
Anne Ridler (1912 – 2001) was a poet and librettist, described as “one of the best poets of her generation”. Her first book of poems was published in 1939, while working at Faber and Faber, for a time as assistant to T. S. Eliot. She published ten collections of poetry as well as original and translated opera libretti, including Monteverdi’s Orfeo. She was also the author of verse plays which were performed in Oxford and London. Her Collected Poems (Carcanet Press) were published in 1997 and she was awarded an OBE for services to literature shortly before her death.
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Frances Ridley Havergal
Frances Ridley Havergal (1836 – 1879) was an English religious poet and a prolific hymn writer. Her best-known hymns include ‘Take My Life and Let it Be’ and ‘Thy Life for Me’. She also wrote hymn melodies, religious tracts and works for children. A Poetical Works was published in 1884.
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Peter Riley
Peter Riley is a British poet, essayist and editor who has published ten collections of poetry. He received a Cholmondeley Award for achievement and distinction in poetry in 2012. A collection Truth, Justice, and the Companionship of Owls (Longbarrow, 2019) explores themes of movement and stillness and many of the poems are set in the landscape of the Calder Valley.
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Elvire Roberts
Elvire Roberts is a poet and interpreter based in the East Midlands. She has a background in British Sign Language, Mandarin and French. Her poems have appeared in journals including Strix, Reliquiae and Finished Creatures and she was also a Writing East Midlands mentee in 2018-19.
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