📖 Book Review ~ Ten Poems for Wellbeing from Candlestick Press

Candlestick Press
March 2025

Thanks to the publisher for my copy of this pamphlet 

 

There’s an expression: to be comfortable in your own skin. The words contain the idea that it’s possible to be at ease with yourself and your life – and that there’s fulfilment to be found in feeling this way.

These thoughtful poems offer moments of pleasure in uncomplicated things – flowers in a window box or eating toast at midnight – and remind us that we don’t always need to look very far to experience a sense of calm and wellbeing. The world can be a place that we know and trust:

“There’s a dream I have in which I
love the world. I run from end to end like fingers
through her hair. There are no borders, only wind.”

from ‘Meditations in an Emergency’ by Cameron Awkward-Rich

This is a selection to enjoy when we want to be reminded that if we look carefully, we have all we need to experience a sense of serenity and peace.

Edited by Vanessa Lampert who likes to walk on a windy hill and hasn’t grown out of building dams on beaches.

Poems by Laurie Bolger, Em Grey,Paula Jennings,Vanessa Lampert, Alden Nowlan,Cameron Awkward-Rich, Sara Teasdale, Jerrold Yam,Luke Samuel Yates and Dean Young.

Cover illustration by Sara Boccaccini Meadows.

📖My Review..

In our hectic world we all need a little help now and then, and this insightful collection of ten poems certainly helps to bring a sense of perspective. I find that reading poetry is especially therapeutic and is essential to my wellbeing which is why I have found this collection particularly special. Each of the poems are beautifully written, quietly introspective, with a real sense of quiet reflection.

I’m always delighted to see the work of Sara Teasdale and in Wood Song we are reminded of the comfort of nature:

“ I heard a wood-thrush in the dusk
Twirl three notes and make a star -
My heart that walked with bitterness
Came back from very far..”

The other poets. all equally talented, share the gift of their imagination in poems which resonate and capture a particular moment in time as in this lovely poem by Vanessa Lampert:

“ Tonight, it’s as if the rain was told
to wash away all
but the unwrapped gold of evening..’

Ten Poems for Wellness is beautifully designed, to a high quality, with a beautiful cover illustration which highlights the general empathic feel of the collection. It would be a beautiful momento, or a special gift,instead of a card for anyone who needs a bit of TLC.

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

Website

📖 Book Review ~ Ten Poems about Weather from Candlestick Press

Candlestick Press 
March 2025

Thanks to the publisher for the copy of this pamphlet 

The weather is always a good topic of conversation, especially if we don’t know the other person very well. Wherever we are on the planet we can’t help noticing when it’s too hot or too cold or something in between.

In these ten poems we encounter everything from drought to a hurricane, taking in fog, snow and spring sunshine on the way. It goes without saying that there is also more than enough rain. The poems don’t merely describe weather; they also capture how it can induce in us particular feelings and states of mind. In one poem, rain creates a very particular atmosphere:


“I love the privacy of rain,
the way it makes things happen
on verandahs, under canopies
or in the shelter of trees…”

from ‘Privacy of rain’ by Helen Dunmore

The poems are as varied as weather itself, taking us through the changing seasons and relishing the inevitable surprises that come along the way.

Edited by poet Graham Mort who takes pleasure in the ever-changing skies of England’s North-West.

Poems by Emily Brontë, John Clare, Gillian Clarke, Helen Dunmore, Norman MacCaig, Graham Mort, GracecNicholls, Sheenagh Pugh, Neil Rollinson and Annette Volfing.

Cover illustration by Melissa Lhoirit.

📖 My Review ..

Weather is always a favourite topic of conversation. We seem to delight in the perverse nature of our British climate and have learned to be thankful that we don’t get the violent extremes so often seen in other parts of the world. However, with global climate changes, our own weather is becoming increasingly more unpredictable, with hotter summers and wetter winters, and with erratic unseasonal highs and lows of temperature.

This fine collection of ten poems about weather is a diverse and entertaining look at the vagaries of climate and our different perspectives on all forms of weather. They conjure warm days, cold days, being caught in the rain days, buffeted by wind, closed off by fog or despairing in drought. We have snow and thaw and the cottonwool fluffiness of clouds. 

There is  something quite special about being in the rain :

From Privacy of rain by Helen Dunmore

“ I love the privacy of rain

The way it makes things happen

on verandas, under canopies

or in the shelter of trees..”

Emily Brontë keeps us Spellbound in this beautiful verse :

 “ The night is darkening round me,

The wild winds coldly blow;

But a tyrant spell has bound me

And I cannot, cannot go..”

 

Beautifully produced to a high standard and perfectly capturing all our thoughts, feelings and the myriad emotions which we express collectively about the weather, this lovely pamphlet is an ideal gift instead of a card for anyone who looks out of the window muttering, not rain....again ! 

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

Website

📖 Book Review ~ Ten Poems about Babies from Candlestick Press

Candlestick Press
2025

My thanks to the publisher for the copy of this pamphlet 

 

These ten poems have been chosen to help welcome a new baby into the world. They capture the joy of the new arrival, relishing the many ways in which life will be transformed and enriched. In the opening poem, the family home becomes a place of softness and calm:

“We brought you lambs’ wool with a memory

of snow, the softest corduroy, felt, muslin,

papooses and clockwork. Our flat filled up

with a flock of cards…”

from ‘Newborn’ by Jenny Pagdin

Not surprisingly, sleep and interrupted sleep are recurring motifs, and there’s tender humour in trying to keep the house quiet. Who would have thought washing flapping on the line could be too loud? These irresistible poems are a reminder that with a new baby comes a whole new world.

Poems by Niall Campbell, Sarala Estruch, Matthew Holly’s, Jackie Kay, D H Lawrence, Sarojini Naidu, Jenny Pagdin, Christina Rossetti, Maggie Smith and Algernon James Swinburne.

Cover illustration by Sara Boccaccini Meadows 

📖 My Review 

This lovely collection of ten poems about babies celebrates all that is special about new life and the way in which lives are changed by the addition of a baby into the family. Having had two babies and now two grand babies I’m aware of just how wonderful this time can be and these ten talented poets have expressed all the joys, surprises and wonderment that newborns bring with them.

I loved the delicate beauty of Cradle Song by Sarojini Naidu:

“ Dear eyes, good-night

In golden light

The stars around you gleam

On you I press

With soft caress

A little lovely dream…”

I also enjoyed seeing two of my favourite poets included in the collection from Christina Rossetti comes the very lovely I Know A Baby, Such a Baby and from D H Lawrence comes the tender Baby Running Barefoot.

A lovely finish to the collection comes in Us by Sarala Estruch which reminded me so much of the overwhelming feeling a new baby brings:

“ Eating, sleeping, washing, loving -

this is all we do for days and months 

No speaking - we develop a new language

Of facial expressions, sound , touch …”

Beautifully presented with a gorgeous cover, Ten Poems about Babies would be a delightful gift instead of a card for any new parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. I loved it.

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

Website

📖 Book Review ~ Ten Poems about Snowdrops from Candlestick Press

 

Candlestick Press
2025

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this pamphlet

Appearing at what can be the bleakest time of year, snowdrops hold a special place in our hearts. There is something valiant in the way they emerge from the cold earth to stand in shivering clusters when we are busy keeping warm indoors.

Perhaps it’s this quality of apparent resilience that appeals to us – and makes snowdrops so popular with poets. This delightfully varied selection captures their many meanings – from Tennyson’s “February fair-maid” to Jim Stewart’s image of snowdrops as “the last lights out”.

For Wordsworth it is humility that characterises them most of all:

“Lone Flower, hemmed in with snows and white as they

But hardier far, once more I see thee bend

Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend…”

from ‘To a Snowdrop’ by William Wordsworth

These are poems to be enjoyed at any time of year, offering a welcome reminder that even in the depths of winter, spring is quietly at work preparing its many joys.

Poems by Diana Hendry, Rosie Storey Hilton, Zaffar Kunial, Paula Meehan, Sarah Salway, AE Stallings, Jim Stewart, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Mary Webb and William Wordsworth.

Cover illustration by Alexandra Buckle.

Donation to Snowdrop Project.

📖 My Thoughts..

I love snowdrops. There is something so incredibly stalwart about this little beauty which rises to the challenge of an icy cold winter to reward us with its fairy like blooms and a whisper of magic. Coming across a hidden clump of snowdrops on a winter walk is quite special and I always stop to take their photograph as reward for their stoicism.

© Jaffareadstoo

This collection of ten lovely poems celebrates this little beauty with poems which make your heart sing and capture the snowdrop’s ethereal splendour. The collection gets underway with a classic poem:

Many, many welcomes,

February fair-maid

Ever as of old time,

Solitary firstling,

Coming in the cold time,

From The Snowdrop by Alfred Lord Tennyson

The other nine poems are equally as beautiful, each capturing the resilience of snowdrops, reminding us that spring is starting to show its face and with the arrival of these tiny white flowers we witness a subtle change in the season:

My white petals

Semaphore that spring is on its way,

Spell out the garden’s true light.

From In the cool light of the winter sun by Sarah Salway

There is so much to enjoy in this collection which will definitely appeal to anyone who loves flowers in general or instead of a card to celebrate the beauty of this special little flower.

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

Website

📖 Book Review ~ Ten Poems about Museums from Candlestick Press

Candlestick Press
2024

Thanks to the publisher for my copy of this pamphlet

In these vivid poems selected by David Clarke we enter museums both real and imaginary to discover a host of beguiling artefacts.

Museums manage to contain whole worlds. They can show us life as it was lived in past centuries or prompt us to imagine how the future might unfold. Some of the objects in a museum may be workaday, but they have a remarkable power to express deep truths about our human lives. In the ‘room of clocks’ at the British Museum:

“Time thickens here, revolves,

regards itself in mirrors;

almost, each minute holds its place.”

from ‘Visit to the British Museum’ by Frances Horovitz

What characterises every museum is the ability to inspire a sense of wonder and possibility. Museums are places we should cherish and these poems demonstrate and celebrate that compelling fact.

Poems by Alison Brackenbury, David Clarke, Glyn Edwards, Suzannah Evans, Helen Farish, Thomas Hardy, Frances Horovitz, Robert Minhinnick, Tom Sastry and Lesley Saunders.

Cover illustration by Jane Burn.

📖 My Thoughts...

I love a good museum, be it some grand establishment, or a tiny local treasure tucked away on a back street somewhere, there is something quite magical about searching glass cabinets for that glimpse of our long ago past. I remember my very first museum, it was a school trip to the British Museum in London. The whole excursion captured my imagination, from the exciting journey by train from the North West ,and my first ever visit to our capital, the magic still remains.

This fine collection of ten poems captured my imagination in the same way, from its stunning cover and the Wedgewood blue of its end papers, to the fascinating content and the reminder that in visiting museums we are looking for a glimpse into the lives of those who have gone before and who have laid the foundations of the lives we live today. I remember being with a group of primary schoolchildren as they explored domestic items in a local museum, items which would have been in common use in the early part of the twentieth century, and enjoying their questioning minds I reminded them that one day items they take for granted will become artifacts in a  museum. Time passes, but things remain.

"Bobbin, Hook and tools my father's 

farming uncle might have had a use for.

Crazed china, stamped with coronation heads

Green bottles dulled by patent medication.

Mangles. Smocks and dominos. A copper

jelly mould shaped like a sleeping hare"

From The Museum of Lincolnshire Life by David Clarke

I find that the lull after Christmas is a perfect time to visit a museum and we are so lucky to have so many to choose. This lovely collection of poetry has certainly whetted my appetite for a visit to a museum but if that's not possible then Ten Poems about Museums is the next best thing, or perhaps give 'instead of a card' to someone who loves a good museum.

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

Website

📖 Book Review ~ Almanac :Twelve Poems for 2025 from Candlestick Press

Candlestick press
 September 2024

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of the pamphlet

We begin on Exmoor and end with a frosted window in this glorious addition to our ever-popular series of Almanacs. On the way, we encounter wild roses and pipistrelle bats, the green-god Lud and “violet lightnings” during a summer storm.

The twelve poems take us through the year, noticing the particular things that make each month unique and precious. Spring is heralded in a delicious poem that relishes the rhymes and sound-patterns of the year’s most vibrant season:

“Slithery, withery Winter’s away!

Here comes dawny, yawny Spring sunrays,

rooty, shooty, tooty daffodils bright,

buttery, fluttery, butterflies light…”

from ‘Here Comes Spring’ by Linda Middleton

What could be better than starting each month with a poem? We hope this beguiling selection will help you to do just that.

Poems by David Clarke, Jane Clarke, Olga Dermott-Bond, Fiona Dignan, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Marie-Louise Eyres, Kerry Hardie, Mark Haworth-Booth, George Meredith, Linda Middleton, Angela Readman and Sara Teasdale.

Cover illustration by Laura Boswell.

📖 My Review…

I always get excited by an Almanac and Candlestick Press have just published their fourth Almanac which is available now for the coming year and is perfect as the nights begin to draw in and we go forward into winter. It makes for a cosy read, tucked up by the fire, with a cup of hot chocolate.

We start the year in January with a walk on Exmoor, a place I’ve never visited but Mark Haworth-Booth brings the place alive in his poem A January walk on Exmoor.

Flipping ahead to my birth month I find 10:58am in November, a poem by Angela Readman

Morning peers over their shifting boulder to say

See, isn’t this worth giving praise? Getting dressed?’

Each month is represented in a poem which reflects something about our observation of the natural world which serves to remind us of our close connection to nature. With its colourful cover, Almanac 2025 is a perfect read as the old year slips away or as a celebration of the new year ahead. 

It’s a lovely keepsake and something to dip into at the start of each new month, and is a perfect Christmas or New Year gift instead of a card for someone who enjoys beautifully written poetry, or if, like me, they love an Almanac.

 

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

Website

📖 Book Review ~ School Days : Twenty Poems from the Classroom from Candlestick Press

Candlestick Press
September 2024

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this pamphlet

SELECTED AND INTRODUCED BY JEANETTE BURTON AND JONATHAN EDWARDS

You never forget your school days… Is this because we were young, our minds marvellously open to the new and undiscovered? Or is it the repeating patterns of the school day and year?

Whatever the reasons, there’ll always be moments we remember: the science experiment that went wrong, a teacher saying we’re a star or the sticky-palmed hours in the hall doing exams. And there’s the universal experience of daydreaming out of the classroom window:

“The teacher repeats the question.

Outside the window, on an overhanging branch,

a robin is ruffling its feathers…”

from ‘The Hand’ by Mary Ruefle

These lively and enriching poems capture the light and shade of our days at school, and celebrate the teachers who help shepherd us through childhood and out into the world.

Poems by Kathryn Bevis, Carole Bromley, Jeanette Burton, Charles Causley, Denise Duhamel, Jonathan Edwards, Carla Sofia Ferreira, Oliver Goldsmith, Lorna Goodison, Andrew Jamison, Stephen Knight, Keith Leonard, Hannah Lowe, Thomas Lux, Brad Aaron Modlin, Kim Moore, Christopher Reid, Mary Ruefle, Catherine Smith and Jennifer Wong.

Cover illustration by Cat Moore.

📖 My Review...

September, with its season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, reminds me of returning to school after the long summer holidays and of collecting conkers from the huge chestnut tree near school. This lovely collection of twenty poems - what a treat to have double the usual amount - brings school days to life in a wonderfully evocative collection of poems by twenty talented writers. From the imaginative cover, which reminded me of my classroom, with its regimented rows of desks which attempted to place us into some semblance of order. Suitably divided into Ten Poems about School and Ten Poems about Teachers, here's a little taster of what delights are on offer.

This reminds me of the absolute fear of turning over that exam paper and hoping what you had revised was on there:

How it all started by Catherine Smith

" Do you know this dream? An exam room

full of neat, serious girls, your lucky gonk

by your fountain pen, the plop of tennis balls

through an open window.  You're here for

'O' Level history on The Causes

of the First World War but you've no idea -"

And of playing school teachers with my friend Susan, scribbling on bits of paper and placing ticks on homemade registers:

School Gates by Carole Bromley

“ is Matilda and Martha's favourite game.

They can play for hours. It goes like this

I have to be the teacher by the French window,

while they take it in turns to be the mother 

dropping her daughter off and picking her up."

Twenty Poems about School is the perfect antidote to returning to school after a holiday. All of the twenty poems in the collection evoke memories of school days, both past and present. It would make  a great gift ‘instead of a card’ for both teachers and pupils and also for anyone who has fond memories of their school days. 

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

Website

📖 Book Review ~ Ten Poems From Yorkshire from Candlestick Press

 

Candlestick Press
August 2023

Selected and introduced  by Ian McMillan

My thanks to Candlestick Press for my copy of this poetry pamphlet 

Vikings, Romans, Normans. Grand industrial cities and national parks. Yorkshire encompasses so much that it probably takes poetry to do it justice. And who better to choose the poems than the ‘Bard of Barnsley’ Ian McMillan, who still lives in the Yorkshire town where he was born.

The poems travel the length, breadth and depth of the county, taking in weather (there’s more than enough rain), cricket and coal-mining, alongside barges on the Humber and the wild glories of the Dales. Everywhere there is the sense of a deep-rooted history in a county where:

“what you see is not

the whole story but the seam of something

precious gone underground, a darkly silver trail”

from ‘The 1984 Perspective’ by Maura Dooley

Yorkshire, it appears, is not only a place but a state of mind – and these poems demonstrate that invigorating fact in a rich variety of ways.

Poems by Maura Dooley, Helen Dunmore, David Harmer, Geoff Hattersley, Zaffar Kunial, Harold Massingham, Ian McMillan, Pete Morgan, Genny Rahtz and Florence Tweddell.

Cover illustration by James Green.

📖 My Review

Although a proud Lancastrian I did live over the border in Yorkshire for several years and my eldest child is Yorkshire by birth, so I feel that I have a lasting connection to this place I once called home. This cleverly selected collection of poems which have been chosen by Ian McMillan, the 'Bard of Barnsley', really bring this historic county to vibrant life.

As always the ten poems selected show the diverse nature of poetry whilst at the same time giving a real Yorkshire welcome. The opening poem The Spinner's Final Over by David Harmer reminded me of Yorkshire folk's distinct love of cricket:

' he asks if I am still the slowest 

bowler Yorkshire knew..'

A poignant ode to Barnsley can be found in Geoff Hattersley's The Penistone Line

''this is Barnsley,

glamorous Barnsely, the town I threw up in..'

I loved the vernacular in Coom, stop at yam to-neet, Bob by Florence Tewddell, there's a definite sense of another era and the passage of time. I could hear the Yorkshire dialect so strong it took me right back to country markets and drinking sturdy Yorkshire ale during nights at my local pub:

'Coom, stop at yam to-neet, Bob

Dean't gan oot onnywhere:

Thoo gets thisel t'leeast vex'd lad,

When thou sits i't'awd airm-chair..'

I have really enjoyed this quick poetry trip around Yorkshire with some fascinating and well chosen poems which bring the place and the county to life in lovely detail. It's the perfect gift ' instead of a card' for anyone who lives in, or who loves, Yorkshire and is even a perfect read for a Lancastrian like me !

And a definite shout out for the wonderful cover which is beautifully designed by James Green.

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 @poetrycandle

📖 Book Review ~ Ten Poems From Cornwall from Candlestick Press

 

Candlestick Press
August 2023

SELECTED AND INTRODUCED BY KATRINA NAOMI

My thanks to Candlestick Press for my copy of this poetry pamphlet

The skinny and rocky coastline of Cornwall has spawned some invigorating poetry. In these ten poems – including one in both English and Kernewek, or Cornish – we encounter land and sea, wild ponies and a Modernist artist, alongside a hill-top ‘huer’ whose job is to call the fishermen when the pilchard arrive:

“They come, they come, that longed-for shoal,
And his voice goes forth in a welcome roll
Over rock and reef, over lake and land…”

from ‘The Cornish Huer’ by John Harris

The selection sparkles in the vivid Cornish light bringing us moments of beauty and exhilaration – always with the salty tang of sea air.

Katrina Naomi is a poet who grew up close to the sea and now lives in Cornwall.

Poems by Rachael Allen, Charles Causley, Jack Clemo, Ella Frears, WS Graham, John Harris, Katrina Naomi, Pascale Petit, Peter Redgrove and Penelope Shuttle.

Cover illustration by Hazel McNab.



📖 My Review..

It is years since I visited Cornwall but I still remember its sheltered coves, majestic headlands and a coastline rich in maritime history. This collection of Ten Poems from Cornwall has been written by poets who have a connection to this landscape and whose words encapsulate the place and its people.  With so much to enjoy, I particularly liked the imagery in ‘The Cornish Huer’ by John Harris as the inhabitants of a Cornish community wait for that first precious sighting of a shoal of fish..

' ..Heave ho! Heave Ho! The nets are cast,

The shining fish are enclosed at last ..'

Katrina Naomi's Poem for St Michael's Mount  reminded me of my first view of this enigmatic Cornish island, a smaller version to its French counterpart but no less spectacular..

'..I look at you - we all look at you.

I wondered about your accent, your language.

I'd imagined ancient French, military, monastic..'

I associate Cornwall with cream teas and endless sunshine but there is a colder edge to this landscape which is perfectly described in Snowfall in Kernick by Jack Clemo

'..Here with a burly flutter and sting

The snow-blast scampers winnowing..'

I've really enjoyed this brief but beautifully described journey to Cornwall and these ten selected poems are a perfect pick-me-up as we leave summer behind and head into Autumn. The cover design by  Hazel McNab is particularly stunning and deserves a mention 😊

Ten Poems from Cornwall is a perfect gift instead of card for anyone who loves Cornwall.

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 @poetrycandle

📖 Ten Poems for a Wedding from Candlestick Press

 

Candlestick Press
June 2023

My thanks to the publisher for this poetry pamphlet

A wedding isn’t a wedding without a poem. The enduring quality of great poetry seems to promise that all will be well for a couple on the threshold of marriage.

You’ll be dazzled by the brilliance and beauty of this selection, which offers everything from heartfelt blessings to reflections on the rich rewards of married life. And of course there are also declarations of love:

“But for now,
we make our promises gently.
This extraordinary day we have made.
Listen –
the birds in their ordinary heaven.”

from ‘Vow’ by Clare Shaw

Whether you’re seeking a poem to read at a marriage ceremony or a gift for a soon-to-be-married friend, this anthology sparkles like a jewel, with something for every imaginable kind of wedding.

Poems by Kathryn Bevis, John Donne, Michael Donaghy, Sasha Dugdale, Kahlil Gibran, Jane Hirshfield, Li-Young Lee, William Meredith, Alice Oswald and Clare Shaw.

Cover illustration by Hilke MacIntyre.

📖 My Review..

There's always something special about a wedding and it's not just the thrill of dressing up and a good old knees up afterwards, it's also about joy, anticipation and the poignant reminder of sharing in a commitment to love. This lovely collection of Ten Poems for a Wedding reminds us of the hopes and dreams we all take to a marriage ceremony.

I was delighted to see my favourite poem in the collection, which I am sure has been read at so many weddings..

On Marriage by Kahil Gibran

"..Love one another, but make not a bond of love

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.."

And the rather beautiful I Loved You Before I was Born by Li-Young Lee

"...I give you my blank heart

Please write on it 

what you wish.."

It's often rather difficult to find the perfect reading for a wedding as so many of the popular ones have been shared many times so it is really quite important to be able to source new material for a marriage ceremony. The heartfelt sentiment and poignant observations included in each of the ten poems in this lovely collection would be a perfect addition to any wedding ceremony.

Ten Poems for a Wedding is published just in time for the wedding season, it would be a perfect gift for those planning a wedding or instead of a card as a special reminder of the big day.

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 @poetrycandle

📖 Book Review ~ Ten Poems about Mountains from Candlestick Press

May 2023
Candlestick Press

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

A mountain is something very particular – a place that entices and daunts us, that commands our gaze while also making it very clear that we’re not required.

These glorious poems capture the majesty and wonder of mountain landscapes, whether they’re encountered up-close by walkers and climbers or are being marvelled at from afar by more contemplative souls.

In one poem, even a failed ascent offers a moment of wonder:

“The late afternoon sun comes rushing and skimming

Toward you, through your eyes,

And through your trembling, stiffening fingers

In a dazzle of light, a burnt-gold avalanche.”

from ‘On a Mountainside’ by David Wagoner

Whichever way we look at mountains, they make us feel small and these poems revel in that marvellous and uplifting thought.

Poems by Li Bai, Gladys Cardiff, Emily Dickinson, Clifton Gachagua, Norman MacCaig, Helen Mort, Yvonne Reddick, Nan Shepherd, David Wagoner and David Wilson.

The poems are selected and introduced by poet and novelist Helen Mort who has climbed in the Alps wearing a Victorian crinoline.

Cover illustration by Laura Boswell

📖 My Review...

There's nothing like a range of mountains to make you understand your place in the world and for those of us who don't have a spectacular mountain range on our doorstep Ten Poems about Mountains shares the splendour and majesty of these giant crags without us having to leave the comfort of our armchairs.

The collection begins with the solid composition 'Climbing Suilven' by Norman MacCaig

'I nod and nod to my own shadow and thrust

A mountain down and down...'

Those of us who don't know the magnetic lure of climbing the spectacular mountains which tower above our landscape will be as affected as I was by reading Glyderau by Helen Mort, a lovely poem about walking in the shadows of those who had gone before..

'...at the North Tower I heard your voice

echo with the stonefall of your own death...'

Majestic elements frozen in time, mountains and slabs of granite which tower above us marking our place in the world with their sheer spectacular beauty, all are expertly described in this lovely collection of Ten Poems about Mountains. A perfect gift, instead of a card, for the mountaineer in your life, or for someone like me, an armchair climber who loves the beauty of words.

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 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

📖 Ten Poems about Wine from Candlestick Press

 

Candlestick Press
2023

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

John Keats’ “beaker of the warm South” must be the most famous glass of wine in poetry. Who could fail to remember the “beaded bubbles” and the “purple-stained mouth”? We can almost taste the rich berry notes as we read.

This selection features part of that much-loved paean to a luscious red, alongside poems that celebrate delicious wines of other hues. We experience a grape harvest in Spain which is celebrated as a form of alchemy, and a wedding reception at which wine represents all the good things that lie ahead for the new couple.

Elsewhere, one poet’s experience of a glass of Sauvignon Blanc is so intense that she almost becomes the wine as she drinks:

“I can drink

on my own. I am cut grass,

light-bodied, off-dry.”

from ‘Tasting Notes’ by Emma Storr

Poems by Li Bai, Jane Commane, Wendy Cope, Jonathan Davidson, John Keats, Gregory Leadbetter, Miriam Wei Wei Lo, Matthew Stewart, Emma Storr and James Thomson.

Cover illustration by Jane Walker.

The poems are selected and introduced by poet, reviewer and writing mentor Jonathan Davidson. Jonathan favours an enigmatic red of a winter evening, but seeks out a crisp, giddy white when the sun shines – as it often does in the English Midlands.

📖 My Review..

I am sure that there have been many glasses of wine consumed over this bank holiday weekend with perhaps a toast, or two, to the newly crowned King and Queen. From our supermarket shelves, to the selective emporiums of wine merchants, wine has become so much of a staple in our daily lives that we rather take it for granted. 

In this fine collection of poems, dedicated to wine, we realise the value of pretty words which describe our love affair with all things vino.

There are ten lovely poems to enjoy, from the lighthearted view of Loss from Wendy Cope

" His absence wasn't a problem

But the corkscrew had gone as well..."

To poignant reflections in The Long Finish by Jonathan Davidson

" I see the bottle pour its fat few drops.

Our glasses gently touch, and one last time

I taste whatever wine it was we drank... "

And finally my favourite which is from The Vine by James Thomson

"The wine of love is music 

and the feast of love is song.."

Ten Poems about Wine is a lovely collection of poems and is the perfect gift to accompany a bottle of wine. This truthful anthology certainly raises the spirits and leaves a fuzzy warm glow. 

In Vino Veritas...slainté

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 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

❤ Valentines Day ~ Fourteen Poems to Say I Love You from Candlestick Press

Candlestick Press
2023

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

How many ways are there to say “I love you”? According to poetry there are many – with room for humour, longing, lust, tenderness and a healthy dose of self-mockery.

These fourteen poems are not about love but declare it with an immediacy that’s captivating and irresistible. Longing may be expressed using all sorts of images – there’s even a riff on a famous Shakespeare sonnet where we find ourselves in outer space – but at the heart of all the poems is love and the urgent need to proclaim it:

“I love your eyes when the lovelight lies

Lit with a passionate fire.”

from ‘I Love You’ by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

This is an anthology that says “I love you” with a freshness and directness that’s guaranteed to stir even the stoniest of hearts.

Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Katharine Goda, Nathalie Handal, Christopher Marlowe, Mary Mulholland, James Nash, Ogden Nash, Abigail Parry, Rachel Plummer, William Shakespeare, Penny Sharman, Dominic Weston and Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

Cover illustration by Clare Curtis.

❤My Review..

Beautifully expressive each of the fourteen poems which make up this latest poetry pamphlet demonstrate the power of love in all its many forms. Whether it be remembering a lost love or celebrating someone new, each of the verses have something special to share and awake the senses and help to evoke the charm and poignancy of love.

The fourteen poem feature a selection of work from poets who are very familiar and I enjoyed being reintroduced to Christopher Marlowe's The Passionate Shepherd to his Love :

" Come live with me, and be my love

and we will all the pleasure prove..."

Alongside less well know poets whose work is no less powerful and amongst my favourite is the very beautiful Love Letters by Nathalie Handal

"I'd like to be a shrine, so I can learn from peoples' prayers the story of hearts..."

No selection of love poems would ever be complete without Robbie Burns' delightful A Red Red rose which has been written in so many Valentines or shared between lovers.

"O my Luve's like a red rose,

That's newly sprung in June

O my Luve's like the melodie

That's sweeetly played in tune..."

Instead of a card and not just for Valentine's Day, Fourteen Poems to say I Love You is the perfect expression of love for any occasion, be it a special anniversary, or just to say I love You to that special person in your life ❤

 About the Publisher

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.

Twitter @poetrycandle