A Poem For Every Day Of Christmas edited by Allie Esiri

 

A Poem for Every Day of Christmas edited by Allie Esiri.

Published 7th November 2024 by Pan macmillan.

From the cover of the book:

This stunning hardback gift book is the perfect pocket-sized stocking-filler for everyone on your list.

A Poem for Every Day of Christmas is a splendid collection of thirty-one poems, compiled by award-winning anthologist Allie Esiri, to take you through the month of December.

Perfect for reading aloud and sharing with friends and family, this book is the ideal companion for the holiday season. It features festive poems and carols by Brian Bilston, Robert Burns, Wendy Cope, T. S. Eliot, Christina Rossetti. E. E. Cummings, Dylan Thomas, Clement Clarke Moore and many more.

The day-to-day format of this fabulous and fun anthology invites readers to make poetry a part of their holiday season.

***********

I am a big fan of award-winning anthologist Allie Esiri's poetry collections, and have several of them nestled among the gems on my poetry shelf, so I was delighted to have a chance to read her brand new festive collection, A Poem for Every Day of Christmas.

This gorgeous little anthology contains a wealth of specially selected festive pieces chosen by Esiri to take you through every day of the month of December. There is something here to touch the heart of every reader, whether your tastes range from the work of contemporary poets like Brian Bilston, the witty delights of Wendy Cope (one of my absolute favourites), or more traditional traditional rhymes and prose by some of our best loved writers of days gone by (many of which have inspired Christmas songs that have become beloved fixtures of the Christmas season).

I think the most moving piece in this joyous gem is the timely Let There Be Peace by the amazing Lemn Sissay, which marks 13th December. It seems particularly apt given the chaotic state of the world at the moment, and I make no apology for reproducing Sissay's words here, even though it is actually 12th December today...

Let There Be Peace by Lemn Sissay

Let there be peace
So frowns fly away like albatross
And skeletons foxtrot from cupboards,
So war correspondants become travel show presenters
And magpies bring back lost property,
Children, engagement rings, broken things.

Let there be peace
So storms can go out to sea to be
Angry and return to me calm,
So the broken can rise up and dance in the hospitals.
Let the aged Ethiopian man in the grey block of flats
Peer through his window and see Addis before him,
So his thrilled outstretched arms become frames
For his dreams.

Let there be peace
Let tears evaporate to form clouds, cleanse themselves
And fall into reservoirs of drinking water.
Let harsh memories burst into fireworks that melt
In the dark pupils of a child’s eyes
And disappear like shoals of silver darting fish,
And let the waves reach the shore with a
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

If this does not leave you with a tear in your eye, I do not know what will...

There is nothing quite like beautiful poetry to touch your heart, and this delightful festive collection does that with ease. It is just lovely.

A Poem for Every Day of Christmas is available to buy now in hardcover and ebook formats.

Thank you to Midas PR for sending me an e-copy of this book in return for an honest review.

About the editor:

Allie Esiri read Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge and is an award-winning curator, described by The Sunday Times as a ‘poetry powerhouse’. Her anthology A Poem for Every Day of the Year was in the best books of the year list in The Times and the Observer. 

Her previous anthology, A Poem for Every Night of the Year was a best book of the year in The Times and the New Statesman and won the IBW book award. 

She hosts an annual poetry show at the National Theatre and regular events at major festivals including Hay, Cheltenham and Edinburgh.