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.

  • Hannah Forward

    Hannah Forward is a printmaker and painter living in Hove. She studied Graphic Design at university and worked as an illustrator for a number of years before a course in relief printmaking captured her imagination and prompted a change of direction. Her linocut print ‘Cassette Tapes’ was selected for the 2018 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, curated by Grayson Perry.

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  • Linda France

    Linda France is a poet and editor who lives in Northumberland and has published eight poetry collections including You are Her (Arc, 2010) and Reading the Flowers (Arc, 2016). Her poem ‘Bernard and Cerinthe’ won the 2013 National Poetry Competition. She teaches on the Creative Writing MA at Newcastle University.

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  • Peter France

    Peter France was born in Londonderry and studied French at Magdalen College, Oxford. He has published widely on French, Russian and comparative literature, including the Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation (Oxford University Press, 2001) and has translated many books of French prose and Russian poetry.

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  • Vievee Francis

    Vievee Francis is an American poet.  Her collections include Blue-Tail Fly (Wayne State University Press, 2006), Horse in the Dark (Northwestern University Press, 2012) and Forest Primeval (Northwestern University Press, 2016). She is an associate professor at Dartmouth College and an associate editor of Callaloo, a journal of African American and African Diaspora Arts & Letters.

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  • Ella Frears

    Ella Frears is a poet and artist born in Cornwall and now based in London. Her debut collection, Shine, Darling, (Offord Road Books, 2020) was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. A pamphlet I AM THE MOTHER CAT (Rough Trade Books 2021) was written as part of her residency at the John Hansard Gallery.

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  • John Freeman

    John Freeman was born in Essex and studied English at Cambridge. He now teaches at Cardiff University. He has published several poetry collections including The Light Is Of Love, I Think: New and Selected Poems (Stride) and A Suite for Summer (Worple). His poems have also appeared in magazines including Iota, Scintilla and Poetry Wales.

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