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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John Woodall
John Woodall’s poetry pamphlet This is Just to Say was published by Offa’s Press in 2018. In 2022, he was the Wolverhampton Literature Festival Poetry Slam Champion.
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Gregory Woods
Gregory Woods was born in Cairo in 1953, moving to the south of England in 1961. Holding two doctorates, he was the first person in Britain to hold the post of Professor of Gay and Lesbian Studies, which he was appointed to at Nottingham Trent University. He has published five poetry collections, all with Carcanet Press.
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Lizette Woodworth Reese
Lizette Woodworth Reese (1856 – 1935) was an American poet and teacher. Her writing career began with A Branch of May after which she went on to publish eight further collections. She also produced two memoirs and an autobiographical novel. In 1931 she became Poet Laureate of Maryland, the state where she lived for most of her life.
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Dorothy Wordsworth
Dorothy Wordsworth (1771 – 1855) was the younger sister of the poet William Wordsworth. She enjoyed a close companionship with her brother, settling at Dove Cottage, Grasmere with him and his wife, Mary, and later moving to Rydal Mount. She wrote travel journals and poetry, and has become famous for her posthumously published Grasmere Journal, a fascinating account of daily life, excursions and conversations with literary figures of the time.
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William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850) was born at Cockermouth in Cumbria and began publishing poetry in 1793. He collaborated with Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Lyrical Ballads, a book which marked the beginning of the Romantic Movement in English Poetry. He settled in the Lake District with his sister Dorothy and wife Mary, and his poems include the famous Daffodils and his long autobiographical poem, The Prelude, published after his death.
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James Wright
James Wright (1927 – 1980) is widely considered to be one of the finest American poets of his generation, admired by both critics and fellow poets. He experimented with style and language but his themes – loneliness and alienation – remained the same. He published numerous collections, starting with The Green Wall (Yale University Press, 1957). Above the River: The Complete Poems was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux twelve years after his death.
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