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.

  • Chitra Kalyani

    Chitra Kalyani is a poet and writer based in New Delhi, India. One of her poems is forthcoming in the anthology Daydreamers by Urban Ivy Press. She is also working towards publishing her first collection of poetry.

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  • Kapka Kassabova

    Kapka Kassabova is a poet and writer of both fiction and non-fiction. She was born in Bulgaria and lived in New Zealand before settling in Edinburgh, UK. Her first poetry collection was All Roads Lead to the Sea (Auckland University Press, 1997). Two further collections are jointly published by Auckland University Press and Bloodaxe: Someone else’s life (2003) and Geography for the Lost (2007).

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  • Patrick Kavanagh

    Patrick Kavanagh (1904 – 1967) was an Irish poet and novelist. His first collection, Ploughman and other poems was published in 1936. Other works include the novel Tarry Flynn (1948) and his long poem, ‘The Great Hunger’. He spent his early life farming in rural Ireland, which inspired much of his work, and later moved to Dublin.

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  • Jackie Kay

    Jackie Kay was brought up in Glasgow. She has published several poetry collections including Darling: New and Selected Poems (2007) and Bantam (Picador, 2017). She has also written the novel, Trumpet (1998), and several collections of short stories. Her memoir, Red Dust Road, about meeting her Nigerian birth father, was published in 2010. She is the third modern Makar (National Poet of Scotland) and also has an MBE.

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  • Yuri Kazarnovsky

    Yuri Kazarnovsky (1905 – 1960) was born in Rostov. In 1927 he was arrested for belonging to a subversive literary circle and spent several years in a succession of prison camps. He published one collection in 1936 which contains the famous poem ‘The Tram’.  The poem’s wit and lightness of touch are at odds with the sadness of his life but it has become a much-loved classic.

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  • John Keats

    John Keats (1795 – 1821) was a licensed apothecary, but never practised, devoting his time to poetry. His major works include the poems The Fall of Hyperion and the blank verse epic, Endymion: A Poetic Romance (1818). Many of his most major and well-known works are collected in his third volume, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes and Other poems (1820), which includes his famous Odes. Keats died in Rome in 1821, aged 25. His letters were first published in 1848.

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