This post is by way of a thank you to – and an appreciation of – Candlestick Press.
Nottingham-based Candlestick Press have been publishing since 2008, and their beautifully produced, distinctive ‘Instead of a card’ poetry pamphlets are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, galleries and gift shops nationwide. Their website says they’re proud to count garden centres, wool shops, cafés and hairdressers amongst their stockists. They have now sold 915,000 titles – which means that they’ve shared over nine million poems with readers all over the world. This makes them heroes to me, for just spreading the joy of poetry!

This autumn Candlestick have just brought out a revised edition of ‘Ten Poems About Birds‘, and I’m made up to have a poem chosen for one of the ten, and so proud to feature alongside poets Alison Brackenbury, John Clare, Emily Dickinson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Rebecca Goss, Thomas Hardy, Caleb Parkin, Katrina Porteous and Lynne Wycherley. I wrote ‘Chough’ after walking on the Pembrokeshire coast and seeing these flashy, beautiful birds, with their red bills and handsome red shanks. Discovering that there is a folk tradition that King Arthur, as he didn’t die, turned into a chough, I was off.

At home I have a shelf of Candlestick books, and give and post favourite titles to friends and family. I’ve now contributed a poem to three Candlestick titles – my droplet among the 9 million!