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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Wanda Coleman
Wanda Coleman (1946 – 2013) was a prolific writer and poet who spent much of her life in Los Angeles. Her work is often political, focusing on issues including racism, female experience and the struggles of living below the poverty line. Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems was published posthumously in 2022 by Black Sparrow Press and draws on four decades of her work.
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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834), poet, critic and philosopher, was one of the Lake Poets. Lyrical Ballads, published in 1798, a collaboration between Coleridge and Wordsworth, is widely acknowledged as representing the start of the Romantic Movement. Some of his best-known works include The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan and the prose work Biographia Literaria (1817). An opium addict for much of his lifetime, he died in 1834.
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Billy Collins
Billy Collins was born in New York City and has published numerous collections of his popular, award-winning poetry, including Ballistics (2008) and Aimless Love (Picador, 2018). He was appointed US Poet Laureate from 2001-2003 and New York State Poet from 2004-2006.
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Jane Commane
Jane Commane is a Midlands-based poet, writer and editor. Her first collection Assembly Lines was published by Bloodaxe in 2018 and was characterised as exemplifying a ‘new Midlands realism’. Jane is co-author of a poetry-writing handbook, How to be a Poet (with Jo Bell), an editor of Under the Radar magazine and the director of Nine Arches Press.
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Anthony Conran
Anthony Conran, trans. (1931 – 2013) was a poet, dramatist, translator and critic, born in Bengal and educated at Colwyn Bay and the University College, Bangor. He became Research Fellow and Tutor in the Department of English at University College, Bangor in 1957, retiring in 1982. Thereafter he focused on poetry, both Welsh and English-language.
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Henry Constable
Henry Constable (1562 – 1613), an English poet, was from a Roman Catholic family and graduated from St John’s College, Cambridge in 1580. He spent many years in Paris and his works included a volume of sonnets entitled Diana, published in 1592, and a second volume of sonnets published in 1594.
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