📖 Book Review ~ Ten Poems about Sewing from Candlestick Press

Candlestick Press
August 2026

My thanks to the publisher for the copy of this pamphlet 

Sewing isn’t just one thing – it can be patchwork, quilting, cross-stitch, darning, upcycling, sewing by hand or by machine. It can also be embroidery, as in the Bayeux Tapestry with its vivid scenes depicting the medieval world. A poem here celebrates a group of nineteenth century women who made a copy of that remarkable artefact:

“…We have sewn

ourselves into the woof and warp of cloth, thread by thread…”

from ‘The Ladies of the Leek Embroidery Society Copy the Bayeux Tapestry’ by Susan Utting

The selection captures the quiet pleasures of all kinds of sewing. There are moments of thoughtful recollection: a mother who takes in evening piecework and a father sewing buttons onto his army uniform. What emerges is the powerful idea that sewing is a profoundly human activity – one that connects us to each other, to our families and friends and also to the past.

Poems by Jane Austen, Ravan Borland, Lucille Clifton, Fred D’Aguiar, Rita Dove, Robert Hamberger, Robert Seatter, Edna St Vincent Millay, Susan Utting and Jackie Wills.

Cover illustration by Jessica Caldwell.

📖 My Review

With the recent arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry to London and the final of The Great British Sewing Bee on television it would seem that sewing is having a much needed revival. My mother was a fine seamstress but sadly she did not pass her needleworking skills on to me however, I remain impressed by those talented people who can take a piece of cloth and turn it into something wonderfully creative. The skill of the embroiderers back in the 11th century, who created the masterpiece that is the Bayeux Tapestry, can only be looked upon with awe.

This collection of Ten Poems about Sewing celebrates the skill of needleworking in all its many guises.

This lovely poem reminded me of my mother who left school at fourteen to work in a Lancashire sewing factory and who used a singer sewing machine at home to make the family’s clothes and who would also lick the thread …

“ You think you are a bird and your station is the sky

Lick the thread and feed it through the needle’s eye.”

Granny on her Singer Sewing Machine by Fred D’ Aguiar

I am reminded of my love of pocket handkerchiefs in this lovely poem which is so reminiscent of a bygone era …

“Cambridge - with grateful blessings would I pay

The pleasure given me in sweet employ;

Long mayest though serve my friend without decay,

And have no tears to wipe but tears of joy”

To Miss Bigg, previous to her marriage, with some pocket handkerchiefs I had hemmed for her by Jane Austen

This fascinating collection of ten poems about sewing is another great example of finding beauty in the ordinary events of life, be it in the feel of fabric or a piece of embroidery, in quilting or plain stitching, in top stitching or simply hemming handkerchiefs, there is something to enjoy for everyone who loves sewing. From its colourful cover, with its upright manikins and old fashioned sewing machines, to its similarly designed endpapers, Ten Poems about Sewing would make a splendid gift instead of a card for anyone who has an interest in stitching either professionally or as an enthusiastic amateur.

About the Publisher 

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 Mountains, Clouds, Walking, Birds, Wine and Happiness. Candlestick Press pamphlets are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, galleries and garden centres nationwide and available to order online.

Twitter/X @poetrycandle 

Blue Sky @candlestickpress.bsky.social

📖 Review ~ Ten Poems from the Coast from Candlestick Press

Candlestick Press
July 2022

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this pamphlet

The British archipelago has over 7,000 miles of coastline – everything from limestone cliffs to muddy estuaries and from sand dunes to saltmarshes. The variety of these landscapes – and of others far beyond – is reflected in these glorious poems selected by naturalist Miriam Darlington.

There are poems about wild Scottish shorelines and mudflats filled with birds, along with a ballad that celebrates the shingle of a Suffolk beach where:

“The shelving’s steep

With stones to skim

As if they’d feet

To hop and skip

Across the deep…”

from ‘The Ballad of Shingle Street’ by Blake Morrison

Everywhere, there’s a sense that we go to the land’s edge to step away from the hurly-burly of our daily lives. Being close to the ocean is “as near as we come to another world” as Anne Stevenson says in her paean to the North Sea.

Poems by Matthew Arnold, Miriam Darlington, Helen Dunmore, Jen Hadfield, Kathleen Jamie, Blake Morrison, Kenneth Steven, Anne Stevenson, Giles Watson and Derek Walcott.

Cover illustration by Sam Cannon.

Donation to Surfers Against Sewage.

📖 My Review...

On the first day of the school summer holidays it seems appropriate to share my thoughts about this fine collection of poems which extol the virtues of the coast.

I have always felt great excitement being near the coast. There's something about the crash of the waves or the gentle trickle of the tide which resonates and I think, we all, being so much part of an island nation, feel something special when we are by the sea. In this collection of verse each of the ten poets share their thoughts so eloquently bringing both the  beauty and the lure of the coast to life.

No anthology of coastal verse is complete without Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach so I was pleased to see it included, with it's exquisite opening line..

"The sea is calm tonight

The tide is full, the moon lies fair..."

Cliffs of Fall (to the memory of Gerald Manley Hopkins) by Helen Dunmore also caught my imagination..

..." of pebble that tumbles. All the grey scree stirs

Slip-rattles and stills itself. Here is the slope's

Angle, implacable. Here's where you look..."

Giles Watson's poem Estuary reminded me forcibly of my early Sunday morning walks along the beach at Crosby, watching the Mersey estuary ebb and flo..

"..Here of all places I am most alien, and most delighted, where every voice is otherworldly, curlewing into space wide as mudflats at low tide..."

As always the anthology has something for everyone to enjoy and Ten Poems from the Coast is a perfect staycation escape for these sunny days of summer.

About Candlestick Press

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.

Twitter @poetrycandle

Review ~ Ten Poems about Flowers from Candlestick Press

Candlestick Press
February 2020

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this pamphlet

Instead of a Bunch

A bouquet is a welcome and beautiful thing, but the beauty is inevitably short-lived. This delightful mini-anthology, however, is guaranteed never to wither. Roses, fritillaries, daisies, gentians and the humble ragwort are celebrated here by poets ranging from Mimi Khalvati to William Wordsworth.

We experience their colours and scents in vivid language, so each lives on the page with all the intensity of a real flower. Sometimes it seems we can even learn from them; lilacs growing in an urban street know as much about love as we do:

“Lilac, like love, makes no distinction.

It will open for anyone.

Even before love knows that it is love

lilac knows it must blossom.”

from ‘City Lilacs’ by Helen Dunmore

This is one of the lovely mysteries of these poems – that a flower can somehow be like us and shed light on our own hopes and joys.

Poems by John Clare, Beth Davies, Helen Dunmore, John Heath-Stubbs, Seán Hewitt, Mimi Khalvati, DH Lawrence, Anne Ridler, Edward Thomas and William Wordsworth.

Cover illustration by Angie Lewin

What did I think about it..


If there's ever a time when the value of poetry comes into its own, then this is it. I personally gain such comfort from reading about the beauty of nature, especially flowers, and the lovely sentiments expressed in this latest mini-anthology have helped to lift my spirit during a particularly sad time in my life.

The poems cover a range of emotions and depending on your mood there is something both to comfort and charm, I especially enjoyed the late Helen Dunmore's poem, City Lilacs which highlights the beauty of lilac blossom in city life's ordinariness.

William Wordsworth's sweet poem To the Daisy reminds us of simple pleasures:

"Do thou, as thou art want, repair
My heart with gladness, and a share
Of thy meek nature!..."

It's also good to see D H Lawrence's Bavarian Gentians featured, he's such an underrated poet, I love how his words resonate with a rhythm entirely of their own making:

"Reach me a gentian, give me a torch!
let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of this flower..."

The most significant poem for me, Overblown Roses by Mimi Khalvati, reminded me of my mother, who loved roses:

"She held one up, twirling it in her hand
as if to show how the world began
and ended in perfection..."

Ten poems about Flowers is a perfect collection of verse for any time of year, to celebrate a birthday, or an anniversary, or quite simply to comfort someone in this strange time in our world when everything seems especially gloomy just now.

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.

Connect: www.candlestickpress.co.uk /  Twitter @PoetryCandle

National Poetry Day 2018...

 On National Poetry Day I am delighted to bring another fabulous set of poems from Candlestick Press

Ten Poems about Rivers

Candlestick Press
August 2018

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this poetry pamphlet

Poems that travel from source to sea

Rivers carve a passage through our landscapes with elemental force. At the same time, they can be and signify many different things. In Ian Duhig’s fascinating selection we encounter the scope and drama of rivers, from the complexity of Eavan Boland’s Liffe to Kayo Chingonyi’s turbid Tyne which prompts lovers to reflect on what brought them together.

This rich and varied mini-anthology captures rivers in all their beauty and grandeur, taking us on a compelling journey from source to sea and encapsulating the shape-shifting nature of water on the move. As Philip Gross says in his beautiful poem ‘Severn Song’:

“The Severn was brown and the Severn was blue –

not this-then-that, not either-or,

no mixture. Two things can be true.”

Ian Duhig is an award-winning poet who also works with artists and musicians, and on projects for the socially excluded.

Poems by Eavan Boland, Kayo Chingonyi, Ian Duhig, Philip Gross, Kathleen Jamie, Zaffar Kunial, Beth McDonough, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Pascale Petit and Julian Turner.

Cover illustration by Ian Phillips.

Donation to The Rivers Trust.

My thoughts about it...

There's something rather splendid about a river. Be it ambling through the countryside gently touching banks of wild flowers, or tumbling noisily like a giant through rocks and crags, the impression of wild water as it disappears into an unknown distance lives on in the memory.

In this collection of fine verse every aspect of rivers and their effect is explored, from the dramatic, in The Scar by Eamon Boland, to the enigmatic, Empty Words by Zaffar Kunial there is a wealth of emotion expressed in the beauty of their words and every succinct observation makes reading the poems such a joy.

It is from my favourite, the beautiful, Appletreewick by Julian Turner that these words are taken:

" Everywhere the water's great height

surprises, a great smooth swelling 

over weirs, a sheer glass welling

above the banks as skeins of light 

wind around themselves in mauves 

and greys..."

If you like rivers, enjoy nature in all its glory, or simply like to meander along the banks of fast flowing water then I am sure that Ten Poems about Rivers will appeal and what better way to celebrate National Poetry Day than by ordering one of these lovely poetry pamphlets from Candlestick Press.

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, Sheep, Birds, Home and Kindness. Candlestick Press pamphlets are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, galleries and garden centres nationwide and available to order online.

Website

Twitter @poetrycandle

click here

Review ~ Poetry Pamphlets - Ten Poems from Russia and Eleven Poems about Football

With the current World Cup being played out in Russia, it seems particularly apt to feature two new poetry pamphlets from Candlestick Press.

Ten Poems from Russia

Published June 2018, priced £4.95
Selected and introduced by Boris Dralyuk
published in association with Pushkin Press

Poems that capture the drama and passion

of the Russian spirit

A previously unpublished poem by Marina Tsvetaeva sits at the heart of this thrilling new selection of poems from Russia. A sense of heady pageantry characterises a mother’s hopes for her daughter setting out into the world:

“Drink wine, ride troikas, sing loud in the bar-room,

be a blue-eyed gypsy, be a temptress.”

from ‘To Alya’ by Marina Tsvetaeva

We also find poems of love, and poems celebrating the beauty of birch-wood and steppe, alongside others that touch on the anguish of being a poet in times of political upheaval. The selection takes us to the heart of human experience with all the passion and drama of the Russian spirit.

This mini-anthology offers a fascinating snapshot of a vast and unique literary landscape and will inevitably leave readers wanting more. It is the first co-publication by Candlestick Press in association with Pushkin Press – a new collaboration that will see further titles published this year and next.

Boris Dralyuk was born in Odessa but has lived in Los Angeles since he was a child. He has translated Isaac Babel's Red Cavalry and Odessa Stories and also selected and introduced 1917: Stories and Poems from the Russian Revolution, all for Pushkin Press.

Poems by Anna Akhmatova, Nikolay Gumilyov, Georgy Ivanov, Yuri Kazarnovsky, Mikhail Lermontov, Osip Mandelstam, Julia Nemirovskaya, Boris Pasternak, Alexander Pushkin and Marina Tsvetaeva.

My Thoughts about Ten Poems from Russia...

The only thing I took from school, apart from my excellent education, was a copy of Stolen Apples by the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko. He once said in one of his verses that, a poet is more than a poet which certainly applies in this collection of Russian verse which have been beautifully translated so that their glorious content capture such a wealth of history and carry a huge sense of the sheer scale of the country and its people.

This poetry taster allows us a tantalising glimpse into the distinctive world of Russian poetry with glorious poems by some of the most remarkable Russian poets who have left their distinctive mark on the world of literature.

Here's one I liked..

from Prologue to Ruslan and Lyudmila by Alexander Pushkin(1977-1837) Translated by Peter France

"On the curved strand a green oak grows,

and on the green oak a golden chain

and on it round and round there goes

the cat of knowledge, night and day-

goes to the right, and sings a ditty

goes to the left, begins a tale.."

Even Jaffa approves of that one!

Eleven Poems about Football

Published June 2018, priced £4.95
Selected and introduced by Conor O'Callaghan

Poems in praise of the beautiful game

Football has accrued its fair share of sound-bites and foot-in-mouth moments. The poems in this anthology – published in time for the start of the World Cup – strike an altogether more subtle note and take us to the very heart of why a seemingly straightforward team sport arouses such passion and commands such lifelong devotion. 

There’s a poem capturing the romance of children playing street football until it’s almost too dark to see the ball, and another in which going to the match is a rite of passage for an immigrant boy seeking to belong. There’s also an extra (brand new) poem from the touchline written by editor Conor O’Callaghan. And, of course, there’s a poem depicting that iconic game played in no man’s land during the Christmas Truce: 

“All these boys want to hear today 

Is the final whistle. Let them walk away.” 

from ‘The Game: Christmas Day, 1914’ by Ian McMillan 

This mini-anthology demonstrates that the beautiful game is entirely worthy of the beautiful language of poetry.

Conor O’Callaghan is a poet and novelist. His memoir Red Mist: Roy Keane and the 2002 Irish World Cup Blues was published in 2005.

Poems by Simon Armitage, Tiffany Atkinson, Claire Crowther, Elaine Feeney, Miriam Gamble, Seamus Heaney, Gill Learner, Ian McMillan, Sean O’Brien, Conor O’Callaghan, George Szirtes and Sarah Wardle.

Cover illustration by Hugh Ribbans

My Thoughts about Eleven Poems about Football..

When I first saw this pamphlet I thought how strange that the ten poem format has been altered and such is my knowledge of football that it took a while for the penny to drop...of course, there are eleven players on a football team.

I never expected there to be so much poetry in football but then I suppose its not called the beautiful game for nothing and as the great Bill Shankly once said, "Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that."

There's a fervour about football poetry which captures the very essence of the game and the stark beauty of watching and waiting and hoping for a win is shared, so lyrically, in this multifaceted  collection of verse.

Here's one I liked..

from Tinkerness - in memory of George Best by Miriam Gamble

"...Snow looms

in the grey sky of your maiden city on this cold

November afternoon, and they interrupt the run of the radio

as you have always interrupted plans..."

You don't have to be a football fan to appreciate the sentiment expressed in this fascinating collection of football poetry. There's such an expression of emotion; from wins and losses, hopes and failures, and hope soars as dreams explode, and yet, in the words of the poet, Sarah Wardle it's...."only a bloody ball..."

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 Cricket, London, Lesbian and Gay, Revenge, Babies and Fathers. Candlestick Press pamphlets are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, galleries and garden centres nationwide and available to order online.

Connect: www.candlestickpress.co.uk

Twitter @PoetryCandle

Huge thanks to Kathy at Candlestick Press for my copies of Ten Poems about Russia

and Eleven Poems about Football.

Two new Poetry Pamphlets from Candlestick Press

Varied and vivid poems exploring our relationships with siblings

Ten Poems about Sisters

Published November 2017 priced £4.95

Ten Poems about Brothers

Published November 2017 priced £4.95

The two latest mini-anthologies from Candlestick extend their family of pamphlets celebrating people to Ten Poems about Fathers, Mothers, Aunts, Grandparents and Babies, adding a delightful pair of titles featuring poems of reflection, joy, sadness and (inevitably) mischief.

Each selection explores the delights and challenges of the sibling bond – from the games and secrets of early childhood to the separate journeys of later life. Ten Poems about Sisters introduces us to two young sisters who together form a pair of ‘toe-tapping feet’ and we taste the thrill of refusing to follow convention in a poem about defiant sisterhood. In Ten Poems about Brothers, there are brothers who fight, brothers who sing, and a brother who won’t answer the phone to his anxious sister. We meet teenage brothers who are so alike they even smell the same.

The poems are tender, intriguing and humorous by turn – and are sure to provoke many a lively conversation between siblings. Most of all they reflect the abiding love we feel for a brother or sister and demonstrate how this can enrich a life, and sometimes even save it.

Ten Poems about Sisters: poems by Julia Bird, Wendy Cope, Michael Donaghy, Galway Kinnell, Esther Morgan, PK Page, Dorothea Smartt, Jean Tepperman, Jack Underwood and Julia Webb.

Ten Poems about Brothers: poems by Matthew Dickman, Jonathan Edwards, Lavinia Greenlaw, Joanne Limburg, Hannah Lowe, Rebecca McClanahan, Rob Miles, Mary O’Donnell, Ben Scammell and Floyd Skloot.

Cover illustrations by Hilke MacIntyre 

Ten Poems about Brothers ISBN 978 1 907598 494

Ten Poems about Sisters ISBN 978 1 907598 50

I love poetry pamphlets from Candlestick press. Printed on high quality paper with a wonderful bookmark, each selection of poems a joy to read. They make a great alternative to sending a card or would make a perfect stocking filler gift for Christmas.

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 Friendship, Tea, Puddings, Gardens, Birds and Kindness. Candlestick Press pamphlets are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, galleries and garden centres nationwide and available to order online.

Website

Follow on Twitter @PoetryCandle

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Candlestick Press launches ~ Ten Poems of Kindness

The pamphlet is being published in memory of Felix Alexander, the 17 year-old-boy who took his own life after years of online bullying.

Felix Alexander

1998 - 2016

Candlestock Press
26 April 2017

Candlestick Press is launching Ten Poems of Kindness edited by Jackie Kay at Pershore High School, Worcestershire on April 26th. At the launch event Jackie Kay will be reading the two poems she has written specially for the anthology and introducing some guest readers.

This new title from Candlestick Press brings something very special to the list. Edited by Jackie Kay and containing two new poems she has written specially for the anthology, Ten Poems of Kindness is allied to a compelling cause. ‘Felix’s Campaign of Kindness’ was instigated by the mother of Felix Alexander, a 17-year-old boy who took his own life after years of online bullying. The pamphlet is dedicated to the memory of Felix and contains the inspirational ‘Open Letter’ written by his mother after his death. The beautiful cover illustration is of elderflower, traditionally used to represent compassion and kindness.

Kindness can be an underestimated value in our increasingly hectic and impersonal world. It is a word that we use most often in our conversations with young children when we tell them to be kind to a fellow creature or a new friend. These generous poems remind us that kindness can take many forms and that a kind gesture doesn’t have to be either time-consuming or complicated. On the contrary:

“Sometimes a sober voice is enough

to calm the waters & drive away

the false witnesses,”

from ‘Kindness’ by Yusef Komunyakaa

Jackie Kay is one of the foremost poets writing in Britain today. She has published numerous poetry collections and a memoir, Red Dust Road, about her quest to find her birth parents. She is the third modern Makar, the Scottish Poet Laureate.

Poems by Fleur Adcock, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ian Duhig, Sarah Howe, Jackie Kay, Yusef Komunyakaa, Norman MacCaig, Sylvia Plath, Rabindranath Tagore and Kate Tempest.

Donation to young people’s mental health charity Place2Be www.place2be.org.uk

More about Candlestick Press:

Candlestick Press is an independent publisher based in Nottingham, UK. We’ve been publishing poetry pamphlets since 2008 not only for people who already love poetry, but also for those who will love it but perhaps don’t know that yet. Our ‘instead of a card’ pamphlets make an ideal alternative to a mainstream greetings card and are a small gift in their own right. They have matching envelopes and bookmarks left blank for your message, and are excellent companions on journeys or for a bedtime read. By supporting us, you help an independent press and our supported charities at the same time as treating yourselves, your friends and family to some wonderful poems.

See more at www.candlestickpress.co.uk

My thoughts about Ten Poems of Kindness...

The notion that we should always be kind to one another is something which, at times, I am afraid that far too many of us forget. And in the hustle and bustle of today's world we so often leave little time for those random acts of kindness which should always be right at the core of our daily lives.

The Ten poems of Kindness reflect so thoughtfully what it means to be kind...

From the poem Kinder by Jackie Kay which urges us to:

" ...Choose to be kind:
Not duplicitous, not two-faced,
Not passive-aggressive, not dishonest,
Not spiteful, not cowardly anonymous,
Have a good grace..."

To the simple beauty of Yusef Komunyakaa's, Kindness

"...When deeds splay out before us

precious as gold & unused chances

stripped from the whine-bone,

we know the moment kindheartedness

walks in... "

Ten Poems of Kindness reminds us that we should look around us and see what's happening - online bullying is a devastating problem, especially when vulnerable are people are stripped of kindness by cruel and unnecessary words which bully, break and shatter lives.

Lucy Alexander's Open Letter to her son Felix, broke my heart into a million pieces.

If you only buy one poetry pamphlet this year, then let it be this one...

Purchasing link 

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Sunday WW1 Remembered...

I take great pleasure in including a feature about a rather special booklet of poems which came to my attention thanks to the lovely Ana, who, knowing of my interest in WW1 poetry, sent this anthology of war poems.

Candlestick Press
16 June 2016
£4:95

The poetry of WW1 has been a constant reminder of this conflict which started over 100 years ago and yet, we must not forget that conflict still exists all around the world and that even today poetry continues to give a voice and raises our awareness that suffering, horror and loss is a daily battle and not just confined to the pages of history.

Candlestick Press have produced this anthology of ten poems in a beautifully presented pamphlet which can be sent through the post, in lieu of a greetings card, or simply just because it looks so wonderful and says so much  - it even comes with its own book-mark and envelope.

With a written introduction by Andrew Motion, here are the poems he has selected :

From Memorial ~ Alice Oswald

The Fly ~ Miroslav Holub ( 1923-1998)

The Artillery Man's Vision ~ Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

The Send-Off ~ Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

Lament of the Frontier Guard ~ Li Bai (705-762) Translated from the Chinese by Ezra Pound

That Shit Shute ~ Anonymous

Vergissmeinnicht ~ Keith Douglas (1920-1944)

I Remember ~Stevie Smith (1902-1971)

Facing It ~ Yusef Komunyakaa 

The Gardener ~ Andrew Motion  In  Memory of Lieutenant Mark Evison

It's really difficult to pick a favourite poem, as all ten really pack a punch and express so forcibly the full impact of war. They are not confined to an particular era and, indeed range from ancient history to the present day, however, I have a special fondness for the WW1 poetry of Wilfred Owen and The Send-Off with it's poignant reminder that the soldiers of the Great War, initially, went to the conflict with a song in their hearts,

"..Down the close, darkening lanes they sang their way
To the siding-shed..."

but whose silent return reminds us, realistically, that so few of these young men ever made it home.

"A few, a few, too few for drums and yells
May creep back, silent, to still village wells..."

About the Publishers

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 Cricket, London, Lesbian and Gay, Revenge, Babies and Fathers. Candlestick Press pamphlets are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, galleries and garden centres nationwide and available to order online.

There's even one for Jaffa , all about Cats !!

For more information and to see the other poetry pamphlets available, please go to the publishers Website for more details.

Find Candlestick Press on Twitter @PoetryCandle

I really love this idea of presenting poetry in an easily accessible format so that people can share a love of verse with family and friends and what could be nicer than to receive something so beautiful in the post.

My thanks to Ana at Sarah Harrison pr for sending to me this copy of Ten War Poems to review, and of course, to Candlestick Press for their commitment to making poetry easily accessible for all.

~***~

Review ~ Summer : Edited by Melissa Harrison

Happy Publication Day

Elliot & Thompson
May 19th

I'm really pleased to support this lovely anthology which is based around the idea of summer and which supports, at the same time, the work of The Wildlife Trusts.

I know we constantly criticise the state of our summers, it's usually that we don't have the right sort of weather, that we have too much rain, or not enough, or that the sun is too hot or in too short supply but what's obvious when you really start to look at summer is that, regardless of our unpredictable weather, it really is a season to be cherished.

In this anthology, editor, Melissa Harrison has put together an assortment of reminisces, short stories, observations and poems which capture the very essence of summer and which collectively show just how precious is the season. Some of the authors are well known to us, like Charles Dickens, Laurie Lee and George Elliott, there’s even a snippet from my favourite Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, other authors may be less well known, but together they all combine to form a well written collection, which is a real delight to read. There’s even a charming piece by Alan Wright,2016 about summer at one of my favourite places to visit, Brockholes in Lancashire.

It's a lovely jewel of a book that will sit quite comfortably on a book shelf and which can be opened at whim and quite simply ,wherever you land in the text, there will be something of interest and it won’t disappoint.

If you have ever walked through a wheat field in summer, well, this snippet, written by Nicola Chester, 2016, caught my eye “…and the wheat field crackles and pops like a bowl of cereal as it ripens in the sun...” ..

Beautifully observed and with such a delicious combination of short stories, this is a book to treasure and at the same time support a really good cause.

Summer is the second of four titles, known collectively as The Seasons to be released at quarterly intervals throughout the year, in February, May, August and November

Amazon UK

 

Best Read with..... a glass of sparkling Prosecco and a bowl of sun warmed strawberries, freshly picked...

My thanks to Alison Menzies at Elliot & Thompson for my copy of this book

~***~