Category: Candlestick Press

Jenny

~ oxfordbrookesuni

She pulls things from the earth
with bare hands, clipped fingernails crusted,
compact with the black.
Roll the stem, between this finger and that,
then ease; out of that musty damp
the bulk of root, to straggling tip.
Japanese radish, long as thumbs, lobster pink with
peppered, brittle flesh;
beet that bleed into scored wood
stain fingertips in violent ink –
she shakes all this life in her hands,
sieves the clotted soil and breadcrumbs dirt.
Plucking at broad beans, freeing
full fat pods from strained seams,
peering at pale bright flesh, their bitter caps
she’ll not look up.
‘There’s something pressing in my head.’
She pulls things from the earth.

by Katie Hourigan

There are three Poetry Centre events coming up soon and we hope you can join us at one – or more! This evening, Tuesday 5 April, from 7.30-8.30pm, we’re taking part in Oxford Brookes’s Think Human Festival with an online event called All Fired Up! It features our colleague Dr Mary Jean Chan, who will be reading from her work alongside nine poets who took part in our Fire Up Your Poetry Practice short course last year. For more information and to register, please visit this Zoom link. 

Then on Tuesday 12 April from 5-6pm, we’re delighted to be hosting the leading Argentine poet Diana Bellessi (the ‘godmother of feminist / LGBTQI+ / Lesbian poetry’ in Argentina), who will be reading from her work with her translator, Leo Boix, in an in-person event here at Brookes that will be hosted by Mary Jean Chan. It’s free to attend, and you can find more details on this Poetry Translation Centre page. If you’d like to come along, please e-mail Dr Niall Munro via niall.munro@brookes.ac.uk

And finally, join us online on Thursday 21 April from 7-8pm for reading and conversation with Canadian poet Sylvia Legris (whose new book, Garden Physic, is forthcoming from Granta and a Poetry Book Society Recommendation), and Mary Jean Chan. You can sign up to attend via Eventbrite. 

‘Jenny’ is copyright © Katie Hourigan, 2022. It is reprinted from Ten Poems of the Soil (Candlestick Press, 2022) by permission of Candlestick. You can read more about the pamphlet and buy a copy on the Candlestick website.

Notes from Candlestick Press:

Soil, earth, clay, sod, clod: there’s no shortage of one-syllable words for the stuff that gets behind our fingernails and sticks to our wellies. And it’s strangely enjoyable to say these words out loud – as if they remind us of childhood and sitting in the dirt to make mud pies. This mini-anthology – arriving just as spring makes its glorious return – delights in all things earthy, including those often unseen creatures like moles and worms who live and work underground. There are also poems celebrating the human toil of keeping soil in good order and the satisfaction this brings.As we’re reminded elsewhere, ‘the soil never sleeps’. These poems recognise good earth as something that’s living and precious, which is why we’re delighted to include a message from the Soil Association about their important work. The pamphlet includes poems by Margaret Atwood, Verne Bright, Carl Dennis, Jacqueline Gabbitas, Adam Horovitz, Katie Hourigan, Yusef Komunyakaa, PK Page, Ruth Pitter and George Szirtes.

Read more about the pamphlet and buy a copy on the Candlestick website.

Katie Hourigan was born in Devon. She is currently studying English Literature with Creative Writing at the University of Manchester. Her work has been published in the magazines Spelt and Porridge. You can follow Katie on Twitter.

Candlestick Press is a small, independent press based in Nottingham and has been publishing its sumptuous ‘instead of a card’ poetry pamphlets since 2008. Subjects range from Birds and Clouds to Tea, Kindness, Home and Sheep. Candlestick Press titles are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, as well as by galleries, museums and garden centres. They can also be ordered online via the Candlestick website, where you can find out more about the full range of titles.  Since 2008 Candlestick has sold over 800,000 pamphlets which means more than 8 million poems have been read via its publications. 

You can follow Candlestick on Twitter @poetrycandle, on Instagram @candlestickpress, and you can find the press on Facebook.

Copyright information: please note that the copyrights of all the poems displayed on the website and sent out on the mailing list are held by the respective authors, translators or estates, and no work should be reproduced without first gaining permission from the individual publishers. 

Christmas Pudding

~ oxfordbrookesuni

Richness waits under spare beds,
at the back of fridges. The more cautious
have placed theirs at the bottom of freezers. 

Made according to family recipes,
passed down or across to new recruits –
a whole day’s steaming takes commitment. 

My Auntie Jean, whose Welsh recipe I follow,
always ensured her grandchildren stopped by
on mixing day to stir and make a wish. 

Last November I stirred in hope
in my mother’s kitchen and kidded myself
it wouldn’t just be the two of us for dinner. 

We hid it away in her overflow freezer –
she always has enough food on hand to feed
her four grown-up children at a moment’s notice.

It will be taken out on Christmas Eve.
As the jewels of fruit defrost maybe we will unthaw
a little ourselves, the kernels of two years’

disappointment and loss melting away.
My nephew will be old enough this year
to have a taste. But before the eating 

the dousing. I will try not to look
at the pudding’s blue flame but the faces
gathered and lit around the table.

by Lorraine Mariner

This is the final Weekly Poem of the year. We’d like to thank all the publishers who send us poems to share. Please do support them by buying their books and pamphlets! Very many thanks also to you, our readers! We wish you an enjoyable and restful winter break. The Weekly Poem will return to your inbox on 17 January.

We leave you with two pieces of news from the Poetry Centre. Firstly, we’re delighted to say that our pamphlet press, ignitionpress, won this year’s Michael Marks Publishers’ Award! Many thanks indeed to all our readers and supporters and, of course, to our poets! You can find out about the other shortlisted presses and the shortlists for the pamphlet and illustration prizes on the Michael Marks website and learn more about the press and our pamphlets on our own site.

And just in case you missed it, our latest podcast is now live and features our colleague Dr Dinah Roe, whose work on Christina Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites we showcased this past semester. In this episode, Dinah discusses three poems by Rossetti, considers how her view of the poet has changed during Dinah’s time working with her poetry and prose and in the course of writing a book about her family, and how Rossetti’s experience as a carer affected her writing. You can listen to the podcast via our website  or find it via the usual podcast providers: just search for ‘Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre Podcast’. You can also watch Dinah discuss Rossetti’s poem ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ in Lucy Worsley’s Christmas Carol Odyssey, available now on the BBC website.

‘Christmas Pudding’ is copyright © Lorraine Mariner, 2021. It is reprinted from Christmas Together: Twelve Poems for Those We Love (Candlestick Press, 2021) by permission of Candlestick. You can read more about the pamphlet and buy a copy on the Candlestick website.

Lorraine Mariner lives in London and works at the National Poetry Library, Southbank Centre. She has published two collections with Picador: Furniture (2009) and There Will Be No More Nonsense (2014) and has been shortlisted for the Forward Prize twice, for Best Single Poem and Best First Collection, and for the Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Prize. Her most recent publication is the poetry chapbook Anchorage with Grey Suit Editions (2020).

You can find out more about Lorraine’s work on the Poetry Archive website and follow her on Twitter and on Instagram.

Candlestick Press is a small, independent press based in Nottingham and has been publishing its sumptuous ‘instead of a card’ poetry pamphlets since 2008. Subjects range from Birds and Clouds to Tea, Kindness, Home and Sheep. Candlestick Press titles are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, as well as by galleries, museums and garden centres. They can also be ordered online via the Candlestick website where you can find out more about the full range of titles. In 2019 Candlestick sold over 100,000 pamphlets, supporting its nominated charities with donations equivalent to around 49% of pre-tax net profits.

You can follow Candlestick on Twitter and find the press on Facebook.

Copyright information: please note that the copyrights of all the poems displayed on the website and sent out on the mailing list are held by the respective authors, translators or estates, and no work should be reproduced without first gaining permission from the individual publishers.

The Chronicles of Narnia

~ oxfordbrookesuni

Somewhere, there’s another world
behind a door you’ve been knocking on
since you were young.  

It’s not that you want to escape your life –
just that somewhere, very close by,
in a room you’ve never explored,    

there’s a forest where snow falls
in the warm light cast by a lamp.
The moon hangs in a clear Northern sky,   

the stream is frozen.
There are thousands and thousands of stars.
You don’t need a key, or a ring   

and there’s no point in knocking:
every heart is a secret door.
One day, you’ll walk right through   

and you’ll be there.
Perhaps a shadow in the trees will approach you.
You’ll feel powerful and brave and very small.

Then your heart will be lion and mountains,
an acre of blue flowers blooming
and you’ll stride into a world   

you’ve always believed in
because there was always a river
and bright moss and birdsong   

and stars – oh my love
though I didn’t know how to reach you
all my life, I knew you were there.  
 

by Clare Shaw

Three pieces of news from the Poetry Centre: our latest podcast is now live and features our colleague Dr Dinah Roe, whose work on Christina Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites we have been showcasing this semester. In this episode, Dinah discusses three poems by Rossetti, considers how her view of the poet has changed during Dinah’s time working with her poetry and prose and in the course of writing a book about her family, and how Rossetti’s experience as a carer affected her writing. You can listen to the podcast via our website or find it via the usual podcast providers: just search for ‘Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre Podcast’.

We’re really pleased to say that our pamphlet press, ignitionpress, has been shortlisted for this year’s Michael Marks Publishers’ Award! The winners will be announced tomorrow, 7 December. To find out more and to register for the event, visit the Michael Marks website.

We recently announced the winners of our International Poetry Competition, judged by Will Harris. You can find out who won and who was shortlisted in the EAL and Open categories on our website, where you can also register to attend our online awards event tomorrow, 7 December. Everyone is welcome to attend! You’ll be able to hear from the winners in both categories and also from the judge, Will Harris, who will talk about judging the competition and give a short reading from his work.

‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ is copyright © Clare Shaw, 2021. It is reprinted from Christmas Movies: A Double Bill of Festive Poems (Candlestick Press, 2021) by permission of Candlestick. You can read more about the pamphlet and buy a copy on the Candlestick website.

Clare Shaw was born in Burnley. She has published three collections with Bloodaxe: Straight Ahead (2006), Head On (2012) and Flood (2018). Her fourth collection Towards a General Theory of Love was awarded a Northern Writers’ Award and will be published by Bloodaxe in 2022. Clare is an Associate Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, a co-director of the Kendal Poetry Festival and a regular tutor for the Arvon Foundation.

You can find out more about Clare’s work on her website and follow her on Twitter.

Candlestick Press is a small, independent press based in Nottingham and has been publishing its sumptuous ‘instead of a card’ poetry pamphlets since 2008. Subjects range from Birds and Clouds to Tea, Kindness, Home and Sheep. Candlestick Press titles are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, as well as by galleries, museums and garden centres. They can also be ordered online via the Candlestick website where you can find out more about the full range of titles. In 2019 Candlestick sold over 100,000 pamphlets, supporting its nominated charities with donations equivalent to around 49% of pre-tax net profits.

You can follow Candlestick on Twitter and find the press on Facebook.

Copyright information: please note that the copyrights of all the poems displayed on the website and sent out on the mailing list are held by the respective authors, translators or estates, and no work should be reproduced without first gaining permission from the individual publishers.

My Father Cycling Up a Hill, 1957

~ oxfordbrookesuni

It’s the hill from the bottom of Factory Trip
all the way up to Manor Farm –
a Welsh hill, one long steep and steady climb 

to nowhere, punctuated by the occasional sharp
or suicidal incline. These
are his feet, his calves – they’re pushing, 

pushing against the weight of the side
of beef or lamb in the basket
on the front of his bike. From his uncle’s 

butcher’s shop to Manor Farm is a climb so far
if I were doing it now, by car, I’d think
twice. By bike? No way! Yet there 

he is, my father, twelve years old, the weight
of the hill on his legs, setting out
once a week all winter, to deliver 

the Sunday joint to Old Man Hodge. These
are his feet, the look on his face
as he pushes, pushes. This is the sweat 

on his brow. His uncle pays him
in promises, end-of-week scraps, the back
of his hand. It’s silly to know 

what I do: my father is doing this
for his mother, his younger brother,
for his own father, who hasn’t worked properly 

since he got back from the war. This
is his front wheel, squeaking,
squeaking as he inches up that hill. I know 

all the reasons he’s doing this
and I wasn’t even born then, so it’s silly as can be
to know what I do – that he was doing it all – 

look at him, pushing and pushing all afternoon – for me.

by Jonathan Edwards

The Poetry Centre has launched the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition for 2021! Our judge this year is the fantastic poet Will Harris, and as usual there are two categories: Open and English as an Additional Language. Winners in each category receive £1000 and runners-up, £200. For more details and to enter, please visitour website .

‘My Father Cycling Up a Hill, 1957’ is copyright © Jonathan Edwards, 2021, and is reprinted here from Ten Poems about Work (Candlestick Press, 2021) by permission of Candlestick. You can read more about the collection and buy a copy on the Candlestick website. 

Notes from Candlestick Press:

We may not love our jobs, but when we can’t go to work we find that we miss them. This mini-anthology, Ten Poems about Work, reflects on our working lives in all their glorious variety with a delightful mix of nostalgia, celebration and humour. Poet Jonathan Edwards’ eclectic and highly entertaining selection of poems explores our complicated and often surprising relationship with the things we have to do to earn a living. The pamphlet includes poems by Liz Berry, Sujata Bhatt, Gillian Clarke, Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Lux, Helen Mort, John Ormond, Kathryn Simmonds, James Tate and Walt Whitman.

Read more about the collection on the Candlestick website.

Jonathan Edwards’s first collection, My Family and Other Superheroes (Seren, 2014), received the Costa Poetry Award. His second collection, Gen (Seren, 2018), was Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice 2019. He lives in Crosskeys, South Wales.

Candlestick Press is a small, independent press publishing sumptuously produced poetry pamphlets that serve as a wonderful alternative to a greetings card, with matching envelopes and bookmarks left blank for your message. Their subjects include Clouds, Walking, Birds, Home and Kindness. Candlestick Press pamphlets are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, galleries and garden centres nationwide and available to order online. In 2019 Candlestick sold over 100,000 pamphlets, supporting its nominated charities with donations equivalent to around 49% of pre-tax net profit. Since 2008 nearly 600,000 pamphlets have been sold, which means that some six million poems have been read via its publications.

Find out more about the press on the Candlestick website and follow it on Twitter.

Copyright information: please note that the copyrights of all the poems displayed on the website and sent out on the mailing list are held by the respective authors, translators or estates, and no work should be reproduced without first gaining permission from the individual publishers.

Jet

~ oxfordbrookesuni

The morning after my fortieth birthday, I met
a bright arc of water. It was thirty feet high. 

The source: a cracked pipe under the road,
the point of emergence flanked by barriers. 

Our gleaming street was shut.
I couldn’t help it—I had to bounce.
It was pure force, that singing curve,
racing up regardless, liquid stamping down. 

It was the best guest: late, theatric,
one I never thought could arrive 

at anyone’s party. Happy Spurt Day, John!
What more could I have needed 

in that moment, I who didn’t know there was
such thirst in my life till that maverick 

showed up and scotched it, till surprise
watered my defiant grey hairs? 

by John McCullough

The Poetry Centre has launched the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition for 2021! Our judge this year is the fantastic poet Will Harris, and as usual there are two categories: Open and English as an Additional Language. Winners in each category receive £1000 and runners-up, £200. For more details and to enter, please visit our website.

‘Jet’ is copyright © John McCullough, 2021, and is reprinted here from Ten Poems about Getting Older (Candlestick Press, 2021) by permission of Candlestick. You can read more about the collection and buy a copy on the Candlestick website.

Notes from Candlestick Press:

Being old isn’t what it used to be. Sixty is the new forty. The world is full of expressions designed to make us feel better about the inevitable passing of the years. This fascinating mini-anthology of poems selected by John McCullough looks in both directions; backwards to heydays of young love and time deliciously misspent, and forwards to the perils and thrills of middle age and beyond. It includes poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, Rita Dove, Mark Granier, John McCullough, Frank O’Hara, Alasdair Paterson, Elvire Roberts, Judith Shaw and Jackie Wills. Find out more about the pamphlet on the Candlestick website.

John McCullough is a poet and poetry tutor living in Hove. His third collection Reckless Paper Birds (Penned in the Margins, 2019) was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award and won the Hawthornden Prize for Literature. His two previous collections are The Frost Fairs (Salt, 2011) and Spacecraft (Penned in the Margins, 2016). You can read more about John’s work on his website and follow him on Twitter.

Candlestick Press is a small, independent press publishing sumptuously produced poetry pamphlets that serve as a wonderful alternative to a greetings card, with matching envelopes and bookmarks left blank for your message. Their subjects include Clouds, Walking, Birds, Home and Kindness. Candlestick Press pamphlets are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, galleries and garden centres nationwide and available to order online. In 2019 Candlestick sold over 100,000 pamphlets, supporting its nominated charities with donations equivalent to around 49% of pre-tax net profit. Since 2008 nearly 600,000 pamphlets have been sold, which means that some six million poems have been read via its publications.

Find out more about the press on the Candlestick website and follow on Twitter.

Copyright information: please note that the copyrights of all the poems displayed on the website and sent out on the mailing list are held by the respective authors, translators or estates, and no work should be reproduced without first gaining permission from the individual publishers.

Spring in Hartsop

~ oxfordbrookesuni


As though God had risen above the fells
and shown his face, the earth answered…
So long since the sun broke the clouds 

or the hills shone in their veil of air,
and now the thorn, unturning its clusters,
its spokes of flower – the snowdrops 

pushing in rings like choirs, each tilting
its neck, ready to sing. Since you left, I too
have slept in the dark of my body’s 

wintering; but now, by the window,
I can feel my heart hatching; your hand,
gentle, lifting my head to the sun.

by Seán Hewitt

The Poetry Centre has launched the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition for 2021! Our judge this year is the fantastic poet Will Harris, and as usual there are two categories: Open and English as an Additional Language. Winners in each category receive £1000 and runners-up, £200. For more details and to enter, please visit our website.

‘Spring in Hartsop’ is copyright © Seán Hewitt, 2021, and is reprinted here from Ten Poems from the Countryside (Candlestick Press, 2021) by permission of Candlestick. You can read more about the collection and buy a copy on the  Candlestick website.

Notes from Candlestick Press:

Seán Hewitt lives in Dublin where he teaches at Trinity College. His debut collection, Tongues of Fire (Cape, 2020), was an Irish Times Book of the Year and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. A memoir All Down Darkness Wide is forthcoming in 2022. Find out more about Seán’s work on his website and follow him on Twitter.

Candlestick Press is a small, independent press publishing sumptuously-produced poetry pamphlets that serve as a wonderful alternative to a greetings card, with matching envelopes and bookmarks left blank for your message. Their subjects include Clouds, Walking, Birds, Home and Kindness. Candlestick Press pamphlets are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, galleries and garden centres nationwide and available to order online. In 2019, Candlestick sold over 100,000 pamphlets, supporting its nominated charities with donations equivalent to around 49% of pre-tax net profit. Since 2008, nearly 600,000 pamphlets have been sold, which means that some six million poems have been read via its publications.

Find out more about the press on the Candlestick website and follow the press on Twitter.

Copyright information: please note that the copyrights of all the poems displayed on the website and sent out on the mailing list are held by the respective authors, translators or estates, and no work should be reproduced without first gaining permission from the individual publishers.

The Gift of the Lotus/Liánhuā

~ oxfordbrookesuni

Penang Island

At the equator, night falls as suddenly
as a plane can land. The whirr of the wing flap  

shifts its tone, as my father’s boyhood
reels past on the runway, new lights and factories 

in a fluorescent glare where rice fields used to be,
and the roadside food stall  

he liked to stop at
for fish congee after a long flight. 

December may seem an empty month for her,
who radiantly came across the ferry from Mainland 

as his bride one Christmas day.
Now there is no moon to chart the tide  

that ebbs and flows around her feet.
A grief that never leaves her – 

as ghosts of the past always seem to,
though they wash up abandoned 

on beaches, silver
in the thick, hot dark. 

Alone too, I can only offer kinship,
marzipan, M&S fruitcake, faint carols,  

mixed spice of winter, holly-wreathed.
A foreign daughter come home 

who must remind herself to unfold as a quiet lotus,
silent character of my father’s mother’s name. 

Touchdown into this deep silt, hold on for dear life,
into the muck of it. When the monsoon thunders  

overhead, zen circle zen circle is a whisper
round-leaved to myself. A perfect brushstroke  

lightning-fast, gathering
enough strength  

to lift my face up waiting –
for the balm of rain.

by Pey Oh

Many congratulations to our ignitionpress poet Alycia Pirmohamed for being shortlisted for this year’s Michael Marks Award for Poetry. In last night’s awards, Alycia’s pamphlet Hinge was named in second place behind the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, who won the award for his sonically-similar pamphlet Binge! You can find out more about Alycia’s pamphlet on our website. 

Our latest podcast features the poetry anthologist Ana Sampson. Ana recently edited She Will Soar: Bright, Brave Poems about Freedom by Women (Pan Macmillan, 2020) and in the podcast she talks about how she goes about editing anthologies, how she chooses poems, and why it has been particularly important for her to edit two anthologies that include only works by women. You can listen to the podcast on our website and find it via the usual podcast providers – just search for ‘Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre’. We are delighted to say that this podcast also features a very special guest reader: the internationally-acclaimed actress Romola Garai, who reads an extract from Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ‘The Sea-Shore’ by Letitia Elizabeth Landon, and ‘Sonnet XXXI’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

‘The Gift of the Lotus/ Liánhuā’ is copyright © Pey Oh, 2020. It is reprinted from Christmas Presents: Ten Poems to Give and Receive published by Candlestick Press (November 2020) by permission of Candlestick. You can read about the pamphlet and buy a copy on the Candlestick website. 

Pey Oh is a Bath-based poet from Malaysia. She has an MPhil in Creative Writing from the University of South Wales. Her first pamphlet, Pictograph, was published by Flarestack Poetry in 2018. Her recent work can be found in Long Poem Magazine, and The Scores – A Journal of Poetry and Prose and Butcher’s Dog. You can follow Pey on Twitter.

Candlestick Press is a small, independent press publishing sumptuously produced poetry pamphlets that serve as a wonderful alternative to a greetings card, with matching envelopes and bookmarks left blank for your message. Their subjects include Clouds, Walking, Birds, Home and Kindness. Candlestick Press pamphlets are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, galleries and garden centres nationwide and available to order online. In 2019 Candlestick sold over 100,000 pamphlets, supporting its nominated charities with donations equivalent to around 49% of pre-tax net profit. Since 2008 nearly 600,000 pamphlets have been sold, which means that some six million poems have been read via its publications. Find out more about the press from the Candlestick website and follow the press on Twitter.

Copyright information: please note that the copyrights of all the poems displayed on the website and sent out on the mailing list are held by the respective authors, translators or estates, and no work should be reproduced without first gaining permission from the individual publishers.

When It Snowed

~ oxfordbrookesuni


you made it sound simple:
how wild geese flying south 

over Grizedale forest is a sign,
how ice used to paralyse Esthwaite lake

where Wordsworth skated
in his black coat, how winters fall

like prayers, how snow stitches
and mends all that is broken.

Through the pale hospital window
I watch roofs blanket white, cars

balancing great hats, footprints healing
themselves as if to trick me into believing

it’s just another of your winter days
and everything will recover. 

by Kerry Darbishire

The Poetry Centre has just announced its programme of events for the first half of 2020! It features a reading by American poet Maya Popa; the launches of our latest ignitionpress pamphlets by Mia Kang, Majella Kelly and Alycia Pirmohamed; two events as part of the Think Human Festival – The Poet as Soldier and Veteran and Constitutions and Poetry – and a reading by André Naffis-Sahely, James Attlee & Hasan Bamyani. For more details and to book (free) tickets, visit our website.

The Weekly Poem will now take a short break until after Christmas. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a great start to 2020! Thank you for reading!

‘When It Snowed’ is copyright © Kerry Darbishire, 2019. It is reprinted from Ten Poems about Snow, selected and introduced by Carole Bromley (Candlestick Press, 2019) by permission of Candlestick. You can read more about the pamphlet here.

Kerry Darbishire, a songwriter and poet, grew up in the Lake District and continues to live and write in a remote area of Cumbria. Her poems have appeared widely in anthologies and magazines and have won several competition prizes. She has published two full poetry collections with Indigo Dreams: A Lift of Wings (2014) and Distance Sweet on my Tongue (2018). She co-edited the Handstand Press Cumbrian Poetry Anthology, This Place I Know. Handstand Press also published Kay’s Ark, an account of Kerry’s mother’s life. Kerry regularly reads her work at poetry events and is a member of Dove Cottage Poets. Follow Kerry on Twitter here.

Candlestick is a small, independent press based in Nottingham and has been publishing its sumptuous ‘instead of a card’ poetry pamphlets since 2008. Subjects range from Birds and Cricket to Tea, Kindness, Home and Puddings. Candlestick Press titles are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, as well as by galleries, museums and garden centres. They can also be ordered online at Candlestick’s website where you can find out more about the full range of titles. You can follow Candlestick on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. In 2018 Candlestick sold over 75,000 pamphlets.

Copyright information: please note that the copyrights of all the poems displayed on the website and sent out on the mailing list are held by the respective authors, translators or estates, and no work should be reproduced without first gaining permission from the individual publishers.

December began with shopping

~ oxfordbrookesuni

for the exotic: mint and apple sauce,
imported rosemary, cranberries, candied
peel and blocks of English butter.

It began with baking, the Christmas cake
drenched daily with dark brandy
until it oozed from the lightest finger-flick

and emptying jar after jar
of Robertson’s mincemeat into pastry.
Cinnamon gold-dusted everything.

After the final Advent window,
we opened all our doors,
welcoming hungry occupants, their cars

filling up the driveway, aunts and uncles,
cousins in greater and lesser iterations,
the generations dressed in batik, bearing gifts.

The kitchen was ever at the heart of it.
My parents cooked together.
Crackling, perfection an inch thick

on the side of pig that Dad roasted
while Mum beatified the oven-pan,
red wine gravy, bliss of roux.

Cheerful, family sat where we could,
plates heavy in heady heat, heaped
meat, golden potatoes, peas, carrots too.

Our hands were full. Still there was more,
glasses, cups, Anchor beer and Sunkist,
hot kopi, Cointreau, joyful chatter,

mince pies with cream, walnuts
to crack and chocolates to unwrap.
Dad asked again, again and

again if we’d enough to eat
until decidedly replete, my extended family
levered to their feet, departed noisily.

Day cooled to a close. Dusk drifted quiet
through rooms to settle on stacks
of washing up glinting in the sink.

It was always good, that stillness,
sky kissed with flecks of light,
night unbuttoning its mysteries.

by L. Kiew


‘December began with shopping’ is copyright © L. Kiew, 2019. It is reprinted from Christmas Spirit: Ten Poems to Warm the Heart (Candlestick Press, 2019) by permission of Candlestick. You can read more about the pamphlet here.

L. Kiew lives in London and is of Chinese-Malaysian descent. She works as an accountant but finds time for poetry and her work has been widely published in magazines including The Scores and The North. Her debut pamphlet The Unquiet was published by Offord Road Books in 2019. Find out more about her work on her website and follow her on Twitter.

Candlestick is a small, independent press based in Nottingham and has been publishing its sumptuous ‘instead of a card’ poetry pamphlets since 2008. Subjects range from Birds and Cricket to Tea, Kindness, Home and Puddings. Candlestick Press titles are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, as well as by galleries, museums and garden centres. They can also be ordered online at  Candlestick’s website where you can find out more about the full range of titles. You can follow Candlestick on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. In 2018 Candlestick sold over 75,000 pamphlets.

Copyright information: please note that the copyrights of all the poems displayed on the website and sent out on the mailing list are held by the respective authors, translators or estates, and no work should be reproduced without first gaining permission from the individual publishers.

Back they sputter

~ oxfordbrookesuni

Back they sputter like the fires of love, the bees to their broken home
which they’re putting together again for dear life, knowing nothing
of the heart beating under their floorboards, besieged here, seeking
a life of its own. All day their brisk shadows zigzag and flicker

along a whitewashed gable, trafficking in and out of a hair-crack
under wooden eaves, where they make a life for themselves that knows
no let-up through hours of exploration and return, their thighs golden
with pollen, their multitudinous eyes stapled to a single purpose:

to make winter safe for their likes, stack-packing the queen’s chambers
with sweetness. Later, listen: one warm humming note, their night music.

by Eamon Grennan

This week’s publisher, Candlestick Press, will be launching its latest pamphlet, Ten Poems about Horses (featured in a Weekly Poem recently ), next Wednesday 19 June at Alison’s of Tewkesbury, with Alison Brackenbury and a line-up of guest poets. For more details, visit the Candlestick Press Facebook page . Sales support Bransby Horses, an equine welfare charity.

The Poetry Centre has recently launched its International Poetry Competition for 2019! This year we are delighted to say that our judge is the internationally-acclaimed writer Jackie Kay! There are two categories: Open and English as an Additional Language, and the winners in each category receive £1000. The competition is open until 2 September, and full details can be found here .

Finally, don’t forget about the final few events in our academic year: firstly, there’s our final reading in the current series on Wednesday 26 June at Waterstones in Oxford, which features Ilya Kaminsky and Shara Lessley. Ilya has been receiving extraordinary acclaim in the US and UK for his latest book, Deaf Republic, and Shara’s collection, The Explosive Expert’s Wife, has received enthusiastic reviews and award nominations. This is an event not to be missed! Register for a free place here . Then join us and an international group of poets and critics for ‘Our Poetry and Our Needs’, a symposium at the University of Reading on Tuesday 9 July. More details here . Finally, we’re launching three new ignitionpress pamphlets by Jennifer Lee Tsai, Joanna Ingham, and Sarah Shapiro on 22 and 23 July. More details here !

‘Back they sputter’ is copyright © Eamon Grennan, 2019. It is reprinted from Ten Poems about Bees, introduced by Brigit Strawbridge Howard (Candlestick Press, 2019) by permission of Candlestick. You can read more about the pamphlet here.

Eamon Grennan was born in 1941 and educated at University College Dublin where he studied English and Italian. He went on to complete a PhD in English at Harvard. He has published a number of poetry collections, as well as reviews and essays including Facing The Music: Irish Poetry in the 20th Century (Creighton University, 2000). His poetry books include Wildly for Days (Gallery Press, 1983), Out of Breath (Gallery, 2007) and There Now which won the 2016 Pigott Poetry Prize for Best Collection published in Ireland. Leopardi: Selected Poems won the 1997 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. Until recently he was Dexter M. Ferry Junior Professor of English at Vassar College. He now teaches on the graduate writing programmes at the Universities of New York and Columbia but spends as much time as he can in the west of Ireland. You can read more about his work here.

Candlestick is a small, independent press based in Nottingham and has been publishing its sumptuous ‘instead of a card’ poetry pamphlets since 2008. Subjects range from Birds and Cricket to Tea, Kindness, Home and Puddings. Candlestick Press titles are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, as well as by galleries, museums and garden centres. They can also be ordered online at  Candlestick’s website where you can find out more about the full range of titles. You can follow Candlestick on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. In 2018 Candlestick sold over 75,000 pamphlets.

Copyright information: please note that the copyrights of all the poems displayed on the website and sent out on the mailing list are held by the respective authors, translators or estates, and no work should be reproduced without first gaining permission from the individual publishers.