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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WN Herbert
W. N. Herbert was born in Dundee and is a poet, academic and translator. He writes in both Scots and English and his poetry is alive with humour, wit and ideas. He has published several poetry collections, including Bad Shaman Blues (Bloodaxe, 2006) and Omnesia (Bloodaxe, 2013) which was published in twin editions as the ‘alternative text’ and the ‘remix’.
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Oliver Herford
Oliver Herford (1863 – 1935) was an American writer who during his lifetime was sometimes compared to Oscar Wilde. He was born in Sheffield but moved to Chicago as a child and spent many years in New York. He was an illustrator and poet, often writing whimsical verse full of wordplay and unexpected rhymes. He also wrote for children and often illustrated his books himself e.g. A Kitten’s Garden of Verses published in 1911.
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Tania Hershman
Tania Hershman is a queer writer of odd things. Her second poetry collection, Still Life With Octopus, is published by Nine Arches Press (July 2022) and her debut novel, Go On, by Broken Sleep Books (November 2022). Tania is also the author of two pamphlets, three short story collections, and a hybrid book inspired by particle physics.
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Dorothy Hewett
Dorothy Hewett (1923 – 2002) was a feminist poet, novelist and playwright, often lauded as one of Australia’s favourite writers. She starting writing poems as a child although her first major collection Windmill Country wasn’t published until 1968. In the last decade of her life she lived in the Blue Mountains and her final collection Halfway up the Mountain draws on this unique landscape and her memories of her childhood.
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Seán Hewitt
Seán Hewitt read English at Cambridge University. His pamphlet Lantern (Offord Road Books, 2019) was a Poetry Book Society Choice. A full collection is forthcoming from Cape. He also reviews fiction for The Irish Times and is a Leverhulme Research Fellow at Trinity College, Dublin.
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Selima Hill
Selima Hill comes from a family of painters and her poems are certainly highly visual – often surreal. Her first collection, Saying Hello at the Station, was published in 1984 and she has since published 15 further collections (including two Selected Poems). The most recent is People Who Like Meatballs (2012), shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection.
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