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.

  • Edward Thomas

    Edward Thomas (1878 – 1917) was an Anglo-Welsh writer of reviews, literary criticism, biography and fiction, who turned to poetry in 1914, and is best remembered for his evocative poems about the English countryside. He was killed in action in the First World War.

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  • RS Thomas

    RS Thomas (1913 – 2000) was a passionate advocate of Welsh nationalism and a major European poet.   He was ordained as a priest in the Anglican Church of Wales in 1936 and had written three collections of poetry before his breakthrough to a wider audience in 1955 with the publication of Song at the Year’s Turning.  Reflecting wild and remote areas of countryside in Wales, his poetry is admired for its spiritual, spare and lyrical qualities.

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  • Frances Thompson

    Frances Thompson is a poet and short story writer from Dundee who is also a volunteer Sensory Storyteller. She loves to write descriptive poetry, children’s stories, thriller/horror stories and also stories that are imaginative, fun and quirky. She is inspired by her partner, her friends, her cats, Simba and Coco, the places she visits and the creative groups she attends which include drama and creative writing.

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  • Marvin Thompson

    Marvin Thompson was born in London to Jamaican parents and teaches English in South Wales. His full collection Road Trip was published by Peepal Tree Press in 2020 and was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. His work has also been published in The Poetry Review and Poetry Wales. He has an MA in Creative Writing.

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  • James Thomson

    James Thomson (1834 – 1882) was a Scottish journalist, poet and translator who wrote under the pen-name Bysshe Vanolis (chosen because of his admiration for the work of Shelley and the German poet Novalis). He grew up in an orphanage in London and is most often remembered for The City of Dreadful Night (written between 1870 and 1873)  which is an allegory depicting the struggles of the poor.

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  • Katie Tooke

    Katie Tooke is a graphic designer who has created a number of striking book covers for Picador, including Helen Oyemi’s White is for Witching.

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