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 700 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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Louis Simpson
Louis Simpson was an American poet born in Jamaica. After serving as a pilot in the Second World War he studied in Paris and his first poetry collection, Les Arrivistes (1949), was published while he was living there. In the course of his 60-year career he published several other collections, including The Owner of the House: New Collected Poems (2003) and Struggling Times (2009). Among numerous awards he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1963.
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Floyd Skloot
Floyd Skloot was born in Brooklyn and has published several novels, as well as poetry collections and work of non-fiction. His work engages with themes of loss, love and memory and he has also written about his personal experience of neurological damage as the result of a virus. His most recent UK poetry collection is Close Reading, (Eyewear, 2014).
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Di Slaney
Di Slaney lives in Nottinghamshire where she runs livestock sanctuary Manor Farm Charitable Trust and independent publisher Candlestick Press. She was the winner of The Plough Poetry Prize 2022. Her poems have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and widely published; her collections Reward for Winter and Herd Queen are available from Valley Press.
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Louise Slater
Louise Slater is originally from London and now lives and works in Yorkshire. She gained a Degree in Graphic Design at Northumbria University (where she specialised in printmaking and illustration) before continuing her studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She has taught art and design at various schools and colleges in the capital and is developing a line of homeware products using her linocut designs and bird motifs.
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Dorothea Smartt
Dorothea Smartt is a performance artist and poet of Barbadian heritage, based in South London. Her poetry draws upon Caribbean identities, memories and myth. She has published several collections of poetry, including most recently Ship Shape (Peepal Tree Press, 2011) and has been Poet in Residence at Brixton Market and Live Artist at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.
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Catherine Smith
Catherine Smith is a teacher and writer of poetry, fiction and radio drama, based in East Sussex. Her collection Lip was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection. She has published several other collections including most recently The New Cockaigne (The Frogmore Press, 2014). Jellybelly, a supernatural rom-com, was broadcast May 2005.
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