A Poem for Every Day of the Year

by Allie Esiri (Editor, Narrator), Helena Bonham Carter (Narrator), Simon Russell Beale (Narrator)

A Poem For Every Day of the Year is a magnificent collection of 366 of the greatest poems in the English language, compiled by the award-winning poetry curator Allie Esiri. The collection is passionately narrated by Helena Bonham Carter and Simon Russell Beale, with introductions read by Allie Esiri and contributions from Damian Lynch and Peter Forbes.

Reflecting the changing seasons and linking to events on key dates – funny for April Fool's Day, festive for Christmas – the book is inspiring, informative and empowering.

Perfect for any age, the poems are familiar favourites and exciting new discoveries. T.S. Eliot, A.A. Milne, John Keats, William Shakespeare and Christina Rossetti sit alongside Seamus Heaney, Wendy Cope, Maya Angelou and Kae Tempest. This soul-enhancing book will keep you company every day of the year.

Genres: Poetry, Audiobook, Nonfiction, Classics, Anthologies, Philosophy, Childrens

Audible Audio

Published December 26, 2017

Reviews

[Sean Barrs · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading A Poem for Every Night of the Year I pretty much fell into this.

For those who do not read much poetry, for those who do not know where to start, this is a fun and easy commitment to take on. Reading a poem a day does not take long, mere minutes, and with over three-hundred poems in here there's bound to be a poem that speaks to each reader directly. I broke the rule though and read it all at once.

Allie Esiri has put together a really strong collection. The poems match the time of the year with the themes reflecting the seasons and its associated mood. This is especially so during the December part of the book with many festive pieces being used. She has also used many extracts from larger works to give a taste of longer more developed poetry throughout, which I think is very important because many of the major poetical works in the English language are thousands and thousands of lines long. Short poems are more accessible, but longer ones often carry much more with them.

Particular favourites of mine included Love's Philosophy by Percy Shelley, The Buddha by Tony Mitton and the very famous The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. There's also an excellent extract from Shakespeare's The Tempest, which in itself is a play of pure poetry. As such the poems are rich in diversity and carry with them varying degrees of complexity. Although published by Macmillan Children's Books, I think this collection is more suited to an adult reader. There are, certainly, poems in here that a young reader may enjoy, but I think an adult would get more out of poems that deal with larger issues such as love, death and life.

Before each poem is a short introduction to briefly situate the poem into its context. These are helpful and informative, and for the inexperienced reader these would act as a guide through many different styles of poetry from a huge array of writers. The cover art is, simply put, stunning. I love the design. The book acts as a sister book to the previously published A Poem for Every Night of the Year with brighter colours used to reflect the day time this time. The layout is also very simple making the book easy to dive in and out of.

All in all, it's a well thought out collection. I think this book would make an ideal gift for someone at Christmas or perhaps someone recently beginning an English literature qualification or a writing based project.

[Sophie Crane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I purchased both the day and evening books, Beautiful presented ,Nice range of poems.
A wonderful, broad selection from across eras and the poets of the world. Each day's poem has a forward providing interesting background and its literary/social context. I definitively recommend this book.

[Marnie (Enchanted Bibliophile) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The midnight skaters

It is midnight in the ice rink
And all is cool and still.
Darkness seems to hold its breath
Nothing moves, until

Out of the kitchen, one by one,
The cutlery comes creeping,
Quiet as mice to the brink of the ice
While all the world is sleeping.

Then suddenly, a serving-spoon
Switches on the light,
And the silver swoops upon the ice
Screaming with delight.

The knives are high-speed skaters
Round and round they race,
Blades hissing, sissing,
Whizzing at a dizzy pace.

Forks twirl like dancers
Pirouetting on the spot.
Teaspoons (who take no chances)
Hold hands and giggle a lot.

All night long the fun goes on
Until the sun, their friend,
Gives the warning signal
That all good things must end.

So they slink back to the darkness
of the kitchen cutlery-drawer
And steel themselves to wait
Until it's time to skate once more.

At eight the canteen ladies
Breeze in as good as gold
To lay the tables and wonder
Why the cutlery is so cold.

I decided to get this collections of poems to learn
1.) If I like poetry. School kind of ruin it for me
2.) What kind of poetry I like

This seemed like the perfect book to test the water. It contains a great verity of poems. All styles and authors. All lengths and sizes.
And I did learn quite a lot.
I learned that I don’t like most war poems. Free-style poems done right can actually be pretty cool. Reading poems out loud give them more substance and can make the words on the page come alive.

I won’t say I’ve became a poem lover overnight, but this was a great stepping stone into a world previously unknown.
From now on, I what to try and read a poem collection or two each year.

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

After not having read any poetry for many years, this book was the perfect way to renew my acquaintance with something I was pretty passionate about in my teenage years. This is an extremely eclectic collection, including a diverse range of forms, styles and genres of poetry written in the English language. Compiling such an expansive collection is no mean feat, so hats off to the editor. Of course, not every poem was to my liking, but it felt good to start off the day by listening to one (or two sometimes). A practice I hope to keep in my daily routine. About 40% of the poems are narrated by Helena Bonham Carter and she does an amazing job breathing life into them. A real treat.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got sucked in by the aesthetic (again) but honestly, this could have been better. Some of the choices were repetitive and, I don't know, I thought the inclusion of The Beatles "all you need is love" was a bit weird. Also, I feel like this book swung towards the male and white heavily.

However, the little description for each day was great, whether it be to explain the poem selection or the date significance. Though the "During the First/Second world war" sort of poems got a bit repetitive and the focus on the Christian Holidays possibly a bit isolating.

If you want to introduce yourself slowly to poetry this might be a great selection. But I was a little disappointed.

[Leah Rachel von Essen]

I ended up giving up on this book of 365 poems (one for every day of the year). I struggled somewhat with Esiri's choices. I agree that speeches and songs are lyrical and arguably poetry, but I guess my struggle is that there is so much poetry in the world to be shared. For example, sure, we could argue that Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" portion of his speech is poetic, but do you know how many poems have been written about King and his legacy? About blackness, and hope? Similarly, putting a Beatles song—and of all Beatles songs, "All You Need is Love"—in February as if there aren't millions of love poems out there, competing for attention? I understand the idea of what Esiri wants to do, but there are more than 365 poems out there in the world for inclusion to fill those spaces, so I was turned off by the dips into non-poetry—it felt a bit like a cop-out. I stopped reading these every day and couldn't bring myself to come back to it, deciding to dedicate that time towards reading more contemporary poetry collections instead.

[Mirona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started with this because I'm not a poetry person and I wanted to try and see if that was just lack of exposure or if it's just not for me. Stuck with it throughout the book (and year) and can now confidently say that I'm still not a poetry person. But there were some very nice poems in this anthology and I enjoyed the way the poems were introduced and chosen for specific days or dates. I like history, so it was nice to see the poems were sometimes chosen to go with a specific event in history.

[Mo]

As with every ' a (insert name) a day' book, I started off well. Reading a poem a day and wanting to read more was great, then I kind of forgot about it and left it at my parents which is why I read four months' worth of poems yesterday+today, whoops.

Most of the poems were not really my piece of cake, but that's what you get with a collection: a variety of poetic doems, themes, and writers. And the good thing is, a collection makes discovering new writers easy. It kind of forced me out of my small bubble and I added some poets on my to-read-more-of list :)

Some other small things to note.
-Pro: appreciated the small introductions to each separate poem, sometimes explanatory, sometimes with a bit of background about the writer or the historical facts surrounding the date of that day
-Con: soooo many war poems. Like, they're interesting, but this was surely overkill (pun intended).

This also reminded me I'm still a sucker for rhyme (no shame).

SELECTION OF POEMS

My Shadow - Robert Louis Stevenson
Refugees - Brian Bilston
The land of blue - Laura Mucha
Solitude - Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Manly Sports - Marion Bernstein
Something told the wild geese - Rachel Field
Diary of a church mouse - John Betjeman
The village blacksmith - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Television - Roald Dahl
Antarctica - Derek Mahon

SELECTION OF QUOTES

(The Way Things Are - Roger McGough)
'When one glove is missing, both are lost.'

(But I can't - W.H. Auden)
'Time will say nothing but I told you so.'

(The Year - Ella Wheeler Wilcox)
'We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.'

(An Attempt at Unrhymed Verse - Wendy Cope)
'People tell you all the time,
Poems do not have to rhyme,
It's often better if they don't,
And I'm determined this one won't.'

(Epitaphs of War - Rudyard Kipling)
'If any mourn us in the workshop, say
We died because the shift kept holiday.'
'If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.'

(Solitude - Ella Wheeler Wilcox)
'Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe. (...)
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a large and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

--Also if people want to find some comfort in feeling bored during this pandemic, there was one really comforting part of a poem I inserted below -- (Today Is Very Boring - Jack Prelutsky)

'Today is very boring,
It's a very boring day.
There is nothing much to look at,
There is nothing much to say.
There's a peacock on my shoulders,
There's a penguin on my head,
There's a doormouse on my doorstep,
I am going back to bed.'

[Michaela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not enough women authors, but on the whole an interesting mixture of old and new poems, well-known and lesser known ones.

[Yoana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have rated the book itself 3 stars but for the astounding impact reading a poem a day had on my everyday life. Adding a minute amount of beauty to my day, lasting a minute or two, had a curious cumulative effect. It made me appreciate poetry much more, spurred me to read other poetry books (I read more of those this year than I had in my life so far), helped orient me in the vast unknown of the genre, so that now I have a better idea what kind of poetry appeals to me; and most importantly, at times showed me beauty that I had no idea existed, showed me beauty in unexpected forms. That was greatly appreciated I'll come back later to add some of the poems included that I loved best; some were true revelations to me.

The selection itself is less impressive IMO. I guess it makes sense, since the book is marketed to younger readers, but there are many nursery rhymes and poetry for children. There are also too many religious (Christian) pieces for my taste, and even where there are entries dedicated to other religions' important dates, they are mostly written by western authors or from a western perspectives. Poems in translation from other languages are very few. That said, I'd ardently recommend reading this book (a poem a day, or however you can manage it - I missed many days some time in summer and then had to read 10-15 a day to catch up, for example) to readers who don't know much about poetry or aren't sure what they like. You'd likely find at least a few poems that speak to you here, and thus get a sense of what might appeal to you in general.

[Chelsea Duncan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The concept of this book is really interesting, and in reality it mostly lives up to expectations. There’s a mix of new and old poets and the book contains a range of different themes with the addition of some interesting historical facts that compliment the poems. It’s nice being able to have a poem for each day, although admittedly it hasn’t been the easiest thing to keep up to the one a day premise. Some of the poems are a bit bizarre, and some are song lyrics and excerpts from novels rather than actual poems. There seems to be no rhyme or reason (forgive the pun!) behind the author’s choice of poets and poems picked in certain parts, and there seems to be multiple uses of some of the work of the more famous poets, and it seems sometimes perhaps a little overused. Overall though, it’s a great book for getting you more into poetry.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

The experience of working my way through this book over the course of the year has been very positive. Being able to pull out this beautiful volume and take a palate-cleanser for whatever else I have been reading (or doing) has been restorative, even in a year where I have read a lot of contemporary poetry.

The title is explanatory and important... it's a poem *for* every day of the year and the selection of poems is tied to significant anniversaries and events in particular...., rather than, I would say, showcasing the 'best' possible poetry. I felt the editor was trying to appeal to two audiences, US and UK, on the whole, rather than being globally inclusive and that didn't work too well for me. Of course I didn't like all the poems equally well anyway. Too few spoke really strongly to me to say the actual poems were the highlight. But that's not the main point of a book like this.

[Chantal · Rating 4 out of 5]

The collection of poems was very diverse and nearly always had something in common with the specific date of the month. Would read it again

[Puella Sole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Malo sam požurila pa sam pročitala i pjesmu za posljednji dan godine. Ideja ove knjige zaista mi se dopala, misao da svaki dan odvojimo koji minut za poeziju. Naišla sam ovdje na neke meni nove pjesme poznatih autora, nove pjesme meni do sada nepoznatih autora, poznate pjesme poznatih mi autora, u nekima istinski uživala, u drugima možda malo manje. Lijepo je i to što svaku pjesmu prati i mali uvod kojim se pojašnjava neki kontekst u vezi sa pjesmom, autorom pjesme, simbolikom datuma i slično.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great poetry anthology. We had a lovely time reading through it this year. I appreciate the wide variety of the poems and the effort the author made to connect the poem to the day it was read.

[Luna Scheffer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a beautiful collection of 366 poems, helpfully dated so one poem can be read each day. In addition to dating, each poem is prefaced by a brief paragraph giving background on the poem and why it might have been chosen for that day. December 1st, for example, features a Joseph Coelho poem about Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat on December 1st, 1955. There are some more expected selections–December 25th is a poem about Christmas, and April 1st is a poem about April Fools’ Day–but there are some unexpected selections for a book of mostly Western poetry. March 4th is a poem about Holi. June 5th is a Sylvia Plath poem celebrating hot air ballooning. The book is cleanly laid out, with each month prefaced with a drawing, and a ribbon bookmark is attached to the binding for easy marking.

This book is most appropriate as a read-aloud. I would not recommend reading this book the way I did, in a handful of sittings. It would best be used as a daily poetry volume, as the title suggests: one poem for every day. Along with its companion volume, A Poem For Every Night of the Year, this is a wonderful way to introduce poetry to students of any age, and to give them a broad selection of poets from Shakespeare to AA Milne to Sappho to William Carlos Williams to Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Most poems are under a page, but a few selections are as many as three pages–if a particular poem doesn’t suit classroom purposes, it would be extremely easy to pick a poem from a day that falls on a weekend, or one that comes over a summer/winter break. Along with the companion volume, there is certainly no lack of poems to choose from.

If a student particularly liked poetry, I would recommend this volume for a middle grade reader and up to get a broad sampling of poetry to figure out which styles and authors they liked; otherwise, I would be happy to read this at any grade level from kindergarten on up.

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a year it's been! I haven't actually finished the book yet, but I'll forget to update goodreads later so its now or never.
I really enjoyed reading these with my mum each night and we have already bought the next!

OK my new year reading resolutions, I obviously did not reach my goal this year, yet I'm still going to try read 30 books next year 😂
I think I will also try to be more honest with my reviews. Quite often I will give 4 or 5 stars as I feel bad giving an author a low score for something they worked so hard on haha
However doing this isn't going to help anyone find books that are right for them so I need to stop.

Hope you all have an amazing year and read as much as possible!

[Jo Berry ☀️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

A DNF. I love the idea of a poem-a-day book, but I didn’t feel very uplifted by this selection. I got as far as 15th February and decided to stop. Some of the poems I knew, some I didn’t, but they all felt a bit bleak.

Quite a few of the poems relate to wars and the Christian calendar, and that’s not what I want on a day to day basis (I’d seek those kind of poems out for specific reasons). One was about a dead cat. On 15th February we were given the lyrics to The Beatles’ ‘All you need is love’, rather than an actual poem. So this is where I stopped.

I love the front cover, I just wish the poems inside had the same playful energy.

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a delightful and well thought out book with lovely little introductions to each poem. The introductions themselves were a nice touch as it gave some background to the poem and why it had been chosen for such a day.

Where else can you go from Winnie the Pooh to Shakespeare in 24 hours? I highly recommend this book. It was a pleasure to read on a daily basis and I found some new favourite poems along the way, truly something for everyone here and if you’d like to read more poetry this is the perfect place to find new loves.

Perfect 5 stars!

[Fiction Addition Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m loving this book as it makes me read poetry something I used to read when I was younger.
Lots of classics in here and a mix of newer poets also. Some are funny, thoughtful, inspiring, humbling.

Lewis Carroll, William Shakespeare, Carol Ann Duffy and TS Eliot to name a few.

Do you have a favourite poem or poet?
Here’s one for today by Brian Patten.

A story, if well told, can last a lifetime or longer. Brian Pattern’s poem pays homage to great works of children’s literature that continue to give, and live a life of their own.

The Secret Garden will never age;
The tangled undergrowth remains as fresh
As when the author put down her pen.
It’s mysteries are as poignant now as then.

Though Time’s a thief it cannot thieve
One page from the world of make-believe.

On the track the Railway Children wait;
Alice still goes back and forth through the glass;
In Tom’s Midnight Garden Time unfurls,
And children still discover secret worlds.

At the Gates of Dawn Pan plays his pipes;
Mole and Ratty still float in awe downstream.
The weasels watch, hidden in the grass.
None cares how quickly human years pass.

Though Time’s a thief it cannot thieve.
One page from the world of make-believe.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of poems, a book that you can look back on throughout the year and enjoy in one sitting.
I was expecting them all to be ‘fluffy’ or positive poems for the days and was pleasantly surprised when they are a mixture of childhood known names and poems true to their words talking on honest and sad subjects.

The Witch. Opening paragraph:
“I have walked a great while over the snow,
And I am not tall nor strong.
My clothes are wet, and my teeth are set,
And the way was hard and long.
I have wandered over the fruitful earth,
But I never came here before.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!”

[Rahmah ~ bookieshelves · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a nice book, especially as one to keep my reading up for a whole year. I will say however, I wish dearly that there had been more non-men authors, more queer authors, and more authors of colour. The representation and diversity left a lot to be desired, and for the most part much of this was from a very cis, het, Christian American,white man lens. December was basically just all about Christmas. There was a lot on wars. Some weren't even poems as much as they were prose. So while this is a nice way to keep reading something every single day, and can make for a lovely present, there's very few poems I would revisit.

[Lorna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I suppose it was inevitable but there were some poems I loved and some not so much. My main criticism is that so many songs are included that really don't lend themselves well to being read as poems. Moreover they are self-consciously read in the most different dynamic to the songs they are based on. So awkward. But I did love the adherence to the seasons and days. This isn't a book for anyone who knows more than a few poems. Even if you think you have never read a poem in your life you'll probably actually be very familiar with most of these. Poems for the Newly Arrived on Earth.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished this 10 days early. I was trying to read one a day but now I want to wrap up my challenges at the end of the year, lol.
I loved the whole idea of this book, I just wish the inside had been as pretty as the outside! I guess it would have cost a lot more, but beautiful illustrations would have been perfect.
I have bought its companion, 'A Poem for Every Night of the Year', to read next year.

[Charlotte Kluskens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful collection of poetry. It took me nearly four years to finish, occasionally reading some poems, but I loved this volume and will be looking for something similar to read in the future.

There were both really well-known poems and poems by newer/lesser known poets, which provided a good mix.

As someone who enjoys poetry but often does not know where to start, this volume was a great help to discover what kind of poetry/poets I enjoy most!

[Theo Meade · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started reading this book to my year 4 class on placement 3 (SBC 3) this is a fantastic poem book as it has a poem for each day of the year. The children love the festive ones like Christmas and Halloween although I did not get chance to read those ones. I found this was perfect for in the morning or at the end of the day and students also volunteered to read some of the poems out to the whole class which was brilliant for their reading and when it came to speech work in English.

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely collection of a range of different poetry styles for each day of the year. A lovely addition to KS2 classrooms to encourage a love of poetry. Children individually or in pairs could select a poem to share with the class, having a different poem shared each day.

[Eve Andrews · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the idea of this book and I have read a poem a day of it (mostly), I just found a lot of the poems to be suited for younger readers. It has been a good way of discovering the kind of poetry I do not like though. And it’s a beautiful book, a lovely gift.

[Iris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Made it! Last year I really wanted to read more poetry, didn't know quite where to start but then found this book.
Managed it almost every day, a lovely little wind down moment, which i looked forward to. Certainly discovered some new favourites, enjoyed my other favourites. I liked the little insights or nudges to historical events.

[Johanna Hammarström · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;"

So starts the last poem in "A Poem For Every Day of the Year" edited by Allie Esiri. The poem being "Ring out, wild bells" by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

It's been nice having this poetry collection follow me through the year. I started it as a little project a year ago. I have not read every day but I have caught myself up now and then and as the year ends I have finished the book.