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.

  • Kathleen Jamie

    Kathleen Jamie is a Scottish poet and non-fiction writer who has published several poetry collections, including most recently The Bonniest Companie (Picador 2016) which was named Saltire Scottish Book of the Year. Much of her work explores the natural world and negotiates how best we can live in harmony with it. She also encompasses ideas about travel, women’s lives and art. She writes in English and occasionally in Scots.

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  • Andrew Jamison

    Andrew Jamison is a British poet and teacher born in the north east and now based in Oxford. His first collection was Happy Hour (Gallery Press, 2012) and his most recent is Swans We Cannot See (Gallery Press, 2023). His work has also been widely published in literary journals and anthologies in both the UK and Ireland.

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  • Rachel Jeffcoat

    Rachel Jeffcoat is a Yorkshire-born, Hampshire-based poet whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in a variety of publications, including Under the Radar, Tears in the Fence, New Welsh Review, Off the Chest’s Spaces of Significance anthology, and a Ten Poets anthology from Sidekick Books.

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  • Elizabeth Jennings

    Elizabeth Jennings (1926 – 2001) lived in Oxford and wrote over 20 books of poetry to critical acclaim. Her Catholicism was an important theme in her poetry. In later life she was awarded a CBE and her New Collected Poetry was published in 2002.

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  • Lucy Jeynes

    Lucy Jeynes is a writer, poet and performer based in the Midlands. Her work has appeared in anthologies including Bugged and her poem about Tracy Island was published in the anthology Double Bill (Red Squirrel, 2014) containing poems inspired by TV and film.

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  • Joan Johnston

    Joan Johnston was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne where she still lives. Her collections include Orange for the Sun (dog eater 2005) and The Daredevil: Scenes from a Bigamist Marriage and Other Poems (Red Squirrel Press 2011). She was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship in 2000. She has worked as a writer in prisons, hospitals and schools.

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