Ten Poems about Art

Candlestick Press is a small, independent press publishing beautiful ‘Instead of a card’ poetry pamphlets. Based in Nottingham in the UK, we’ve been making our mini-anthologies since 2008 and have now sold over 915,000 titles – which means that we’ve shared over nine million poems with our readers all over the world.

Poems about art have a long and vivid history, and some of our greatest poets have tried to capture in verse the beguiling worlds of colour on canvas. Geoff Dyer’s remarkably wide-ranging selection encourages us to look at familiar and unfamiliar paintings and artists with fresh eyes.

We find ourselves in Vermeer’s studio next door to a rowdy alehouse and meet a Bonnard nude day-dreaming in her bathtub. There’s a contemplative poem capturing the calm of a Vuillard interior, and then there’s life as one of Miró’s dots:

“So here I am, on the edge of animation,
a dream, a dance, a fantastic construction,

A child’s adventure.”

from ‘I Would Like to be a Dot in a Painting by Miró’ by Moniza Alvi

Our pamphlets are supplied with an envelope for posting, a bookmark for a special message and an ‘Instead of a card’ sticker to seal the back of the envelope for a lovely finishing touch.

Paperback | 24 printed pages