Dancing By The Light of The Moon: Over 250 poems to read, relish and recite

by Gyles Brandreth

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

A collection of over 250 of our nations best-loved poems to read, relish and recite, handpicked by Gyles Brandreth . . .

'Gyles has discovered the secret of finding happiness through learning poetry by heart. It's wonderful and so much fun.' Dame Judi Dench
__________

A little poetry really can save your life . . .

Poetry is officially good for you.

Not only does it enhance literacy in the young, but learning poetry by heart is the one truly pleasurable thing you can do to improve memory, boost brain power, extend your vocabulary and beat cognitive decline as time goes by.

In Dancing by the Light of the Moon, Gyles Brandreth shares over 250 poems to read, relish and recite, as well as his advice on how to learn poetry by heart, and the benefits of doing so.

Whether you are nine, nineteen or ninety, the poems and advice in this book provide the most enjoyable, moving and inspiring way to ensure a lifetime of dancing by the light of the moon - one joyous poem at a time . . .

'To instil a love of literature, a copy of Dancing by the Light of the Moon ought to find its way into every home in the land' Daily Mail, Book of the Week

Poets include:

A. A. Milne
Benjamin Zephaniah
Carol Ann Duffy
Celia Johnson
D. H. Lawrence
E. E. Cummings
Edgar Allen Poe
Emily Dickinson
George the Poet
Hollie McNish
John Cooper Clarke
John Keats
John Milton
Kate Tempest
Leonard Cohen
Lewis Carroll
Maya Angelou
Monty Python
Oscar Wilde
Roald Dahl
Robert Browning
Robert Burns
Robert Louis Stevenson
Simon Armitage
Spike Milligan
Sylvia Plath
T. S. Eliot
Walt Whitman
Wendy Cope
William Shakespeare
William Wordsworth

And many more . . .

DANCING BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON IS AN OFFICIAL PARTNER OF NATIONAL POETRY DAY

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Anthologies

458 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 5, 2019

About the author

Full name: Gyles Daubeney Brandreth.
A former Oxford Scholar, President of the Oxford Union and MP for the City of Chester, Gyles Brandreth’s career has ranged from being a Whip and Lord Commissioner of the Treasury in John Major’s government to starring in his own award-winning musical revue in London’s West End. A prolific broadcaster (in programmes ranging from Just a Minute to Have I Got News for You), an acclaimed interviewer (principally for the Sunday Telegraph), a novelist, children’s author and biographer, his best-selling diary, Breaking the Code, was described as ‘By far the best political diary of recent years, far more perceptive and revealing than Alan Clark’s’ (The Times) and ‘Searingly honest, wildly indiscreet, and incredibly funny’ (Daily Mail). He is the author of two acclaimed royal biographies: Philip Elizabeth: Portrait of a Marriage and Charles Camilla: Portrait of a Love Affair. In 2007/2008, John Murray in the UK and Simon & Schuster in the US began publishing The Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries, his series of Victorian murder mysteries featuring Oscar Wilde as the detective.

As a performer, Gyles Brandreth has been seen most recently in ZIPP! ONE HUNDRED MUSICALS FOR LESS THAN THE PRICE OF ONE at the Duchess Theatre and on tour throughout the UK, and as Malvolio and the Sea Captain in TWELFTH NIGHT THE MUSICAL at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Gyles Brandreth is one of Britain’s busiest after-dinner speakers and award ceremony hosts. He has won awards himself, and been nominated for awards, as a public speaker, novelist, children’s writer, broadcaster (Sony), political diarist (Channel Four), journalist (British Press Awards), theatre producer (Olivier), and businessman (British Tourist Authority Come to Britain Trophy).

He is married to writer and publisher Michèle Brown, with whom he co-curated the exhibition of twentieth century children’s authors at the National Portrait Gallery and founded the award-winning Teddy Bear Museum now based at the Polka Theatre in Wimbledon. He is a trustee of the British Forces Foundation, and a former chairman and now vice-president of the National Playing Fields Association.

Gyles Brandreth’s forebears include George R. Sims (the highest-paid journalist of his day, who wrote the ballad Christmas Day in the Workhouse) and Jeremiah Brandreth (the last man in England to be beheaded for treason). His great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Brandreth, promoted ‘Brandreth’s Pills’ (a medicine that cured everything!) and was a pioneer of modern advertising and a New York state senator. Today, Gyles Brandreth has family living in New York, Maryland, South Carolina and California. He has been London correspondent for “Up to the Minute” on CBS News and his books published in the United States include the New York Times best-seller, The Joy of Lex and, most recently, Philip Elizabeth: Portrait of a Royal Marriage.

Reviews

[Veronique · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a poetry anthology with a difference. Brandreth focuses on memorising it, giving us at first a whole plethora of reasons why this is fun and useful. He follows on with various techniques on how to go about it, learning just two lines per day.

I must admit I did wonder. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of Brandreth. His voice is brilliant and so much fun. I was just not sure I’d want to actually learn some poems by heart. Well, I do :0) The poems collected here are organised by length, which makes sense in the context. The variety is also something I appreciated. Often, the same poems keep appearing. Here, thankfully, Brandreth has put together a wider selection - well, to me - including even soliloquies from Shakespeare! I can see myself dipping back in this volume and learning a few poems :0)

[Lisa - *OwlBeSatReading* · Rating 5 out of 5]

A forever friend and forever re-read.

[Fiction Addition Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

According to this book - Poetry is officially good for you. Who knew?

Not only does it enhance literacy in the young, but learning poetry by heart is the one truly pleasurable thing you can do to improve memory, boost brain power, extend your vocabulary and beat cognitive decline as time goes by.
In Dancing by the Light of the Moon, Gyles Brandreth shares over 250 poems to read, relish and recite, as well as his advice on how to learn poetry by heart, and the benefits of doing so.

I’ve been slowly reading it now for months and it’s going to become one of my life long favourite books.
Whether you are nine, nineteen or ninety, the poems and advice in this book provide the most enjoyable, moving and inspiring way to ensure a lifetime of dancing by the light of the moon - one joyous poem at a time . .

[Georgia Glick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the variety of poems in this anthology, together with tips for improving memory and how to learn poems by heart. As I have dyslexia and poor working memory, I find poetry an accessible way to enjoy literature. I am visual and enjoy the imagery, metaphors and alliteration found in poetry, I like the way you can dip into and out of a poetry book, revisiting old favourites and discovering new gems. I had learnt Colour by Christina Rossetti as a child, the simplicity of this poem but the visual nature of it appeals to me, this would be a useful poem to introduce children to poetry and encourage them to develop similar poems on their own using colour as the basis of what inspires them. The range of poems in this anthology is great - ranging from short limericks, to Shakespeare, to classic poems, such as Tyger by Blake and nonsense poetry like the Jabberwocky by Carroll - it is a gentle introduction to poetry for even the most reluctant reader and even people who say they don’t like poetry will be charmed by it.

[Kevin Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last year I read a poem entitled 'The Orange' written by Wendy Cope. It is a simple poem encouraging the reader to enjoy the simple things in life. At about the same time I read about the publication of Dancing by the Light of the Moon. What a wonderful coincidence. It went to the top of my Christmas gift list and my daughter duly served it up.
I find poetry works so much better when recited aloud rather than being silently read. Here, Gyles Brandreth leaves us with no excuse not to learn and recite poetry. The book is full of tips and advice to get started and I am now on my way to learning my second poem by heart. A little longer this time: 'Night Mail' by W.H. Auden. A lovely rhythmical set of verses.
Even if learning poetry by heart is not your thing, the book works just as well as a reference for some of the greatest poems that have been written. Well worth a look.

[Jackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love a bit of poetry and trying to learn loved poems by heart. Gyles Brandreth is a passionate advocate of learning poetry and this book is delightful. Lots of great ideas for good poems to learn with tips for committing to memory.

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Absolute Joy. One to Teasure.

[Rae · Rating 4 out of 5]

PopSugar Reading Challenge 2020: An anthology

I should probably be nice about this book because Gyles Brandreth is a big promoter of poetry and I'm an aspiring poet. Luckily, this won't be hard!

This is a pleasant collection of poetry, mostly rhyming and structured. Gyles Brandreth and I have different tastes (I prefer more freestyle, stream of consciousness stylings - think Simon Armitage) but there is lots of overlap.

Highlights for me included:

Meditation XVII (p73)
What lips my lips have kissed and where and why (p97)
Anthem for doomed youth (p201)
When you are old (p208)
Phenomenal woman (p300)
Death is nothing at all (p362)
Funeral blues (p369)
The road not taken (p386)

There were, of course, others that I enjoyed too!

I doubt Mr Brandreth reads his reviews on here, but on the offchance... he should Google "I had a hippopotamus"... it's one of the most excellent rhyming poems on the planet and would have fitted in perfectly between Pobbles.

Also, I hate the Walrus and the Carpenter. (Always have!) Those poor little oysters. As Rizzo the Rat once said "mother always said: never eat singing food!"

I recommend this edition for beginners: people new to poetry who are looking for some of the best to peruse and keep. There are some gems here.

[Fleur · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection and the commentary is a beautiful celebration of poetry, if you’re into performance poetry. I love that it’s very diverse in subject, style, age and length. The commentary teaches us just the right amount of technicality to understand differences in poetry and provides some background information on the authors and times these poems have famously been performed. And for all of that, even though there are a lot of nonsense poems and more “funny” poetry than I can cope with, this is definitely a top 5 anthology for me.

[Lordoftaipo · Rating 5 out of 5]

If there is anything that I had long considered to be inscrutable, it is poetry. It strikes me odder when poems are recited with passion and by heart. Gyles Brandreth is in practice one such candidate, who gives the listeners of various podcasts his favourite poems.

Thanks to him, I have come to enjoy poems as they are. What used to be in the way of my poetic appreciation was scepticism. Instead of being fussy about the rhyming scheme or line breaks, having read 200+ English poems in under a week, I have changed. As an afterthought, isn’t performing and feeling the poems what I learned to do since my first ever Chinese lesson?

More importantly, shower thoughts of all kinds can now be put down in wondrous expressions, unrestrained and uniquely mine. I can instruct them to be platitudinous, playful, or pragmatic. Taking Gyles’s inspiration, I realise that the beauty of writing one’s own poems lies in countless possibilities.

It all started by learning poems.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice big book with plenty of different types of poems! I kept this on my locker at tipped away at it before bed for months.

[Gail Wylde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learning poems may help keep dementia at bay, so reading this book has made me determined to do just that. I will begin with the poems I liked that are familiar to me (I’m not cheating as I only remember the first few lines but it’s a start!) it can’t hurt and it might be fun.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was not a lover of poetry (or Gyles Brandreth for that matter) until I listened to a radio programme he made about poetry being good for your brain. The book is brilliant, with poems I vaguely remember from childhood, some new ones that I love and some I will never read again! The point is it's made me learn some poetry (two in a month!) and the sense of achievement and the impact it has had on my life is immense! I look at daffodils and Spring in a different light now after learning 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud' for instance. Giles is right, they do become friends that you can take with you anywhere! I can't wait to learn more, maybe I will make it to 24 by the end of the year! I am now a convert to poetry (and Gyles!)

[Mark Billington · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really enjoyed reading the above. I picked up this book up and was instantly drawn into it. I've now made a list of favourites. It's odd how evocative they are of time, place, and feeling. Interesting selection and interesting narrative re the importance of poetry and benefits of learning it by heart.
My picks
Atlas UA Fanthorpe my favourite, Friendship Elizabeth Jennings, The Rolling English Road GK Chesterton, Leisure WH Davies, I’d love to be a Fairies Child Robert Graves,Happy the man John Dryden, The Good News Thich Nhat Hanh, Getting older Elaine Feinstein, Dedicatory Ode Hillaire Beloc, Matilda Hilaire Beloc, Sonny’s Letah Linton Kwesi Johnson, Thoughts after Ruskin Elma Mitchell, The Door Miroslav Holu, Today is very boring by Jack Prelutsky

[Kirsty Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely book that I can see holding onto forever and referring/learning the poems throughout my life. Great anecdotes and biographical notes about the poets and written superbly so that it all flows and isn't just your average collection.

[Hayley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely to rediscover some old favourites as well as some poems which I have not come across before. I’m planning to keep this by my bed and revisit this during the next few months and select a few to learn off by heart.

[Anthony Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gyles Brandreth may be an acquired taste, but not for me. I like his love of words and the pleasure he takes in using them. Yes, he can be prolix, but the real virtue of this book is that it displays him at his most enthusiastically encouraging. In it, his intention is to promote the lifelong pleasure of learning poetry - well, learning anything - by heart.

He is adamant that as well as providing the learner with a bank of recallable pleasure, the activity required of the brain in the memorising of poetry is one that increases both wellbeing and physical - including cerebral - health. And he is excellent at explaining how poetry works to even the most frightened or prejudiced former school pupil, which pretty much means everyone.

I specially liked the section he devotes to some of the ways we can commit something to memory, the most indiosyncratic of which, among many, was his teenage technique of learning a sonnet as he travelled between the 14 underground stations between Waterloo and Queen's Park: it was a line between every stop. Whatever works for you!

And the book is also an anthology of well known as well as less celebrated - even unknown - poems, selected as he considers them ones which are accessible to all and which he esteems as enjoyably worthwhile spending time with. This does not mean the collection is trivial: there's plenty of Shakespeare, for example. But his range extends from 'There was an old man of Peru...' to 'Of man's first diobedience...' with plenty of variety - old, modern, contemporary - in between. For example, you can tackle Edward Lear (How pleasant to know Mr Lear) and Flanders and Swann (The Hippopotamus Song), or Oscar Wilde (The seasons send their ruin as they go) and John Gillespie Magee Jr (Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth) and Elma Mitchell (Women reminded him of lilies and roses). There are short poems and long ones, funny ones and serious ones - in all a marvellously varied collection.

Well worth taking the man's advice. Get learning now. As he says, anyone can do two lines a day!

[Richard Morrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you feel that you don’t ‘get’ poetry then this will bring poetry to life for you! It is filled to the brim with poems for every person or occasion and the commentary from Gyles Brandreth makes the poems become more accessible and relatable for the casual appreciator of poetry.
This will inspire you to select some poems to learn off and, if you’re like me, set you on a journey to find more poems to read and appreciate.

[Suze McCullagh · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute gem of a book. Brandreth explains the benefits of learning poetry by heart, gives lots of tips on how to achieve this and then peppers the book with some gorgeous examples to learn. This particular edition has an epilogue following the onset of the COVID pandemic, with additional poems written during lockdowns and anecdotes about how many people found poetry comforting during this stressful and lonely time. Everyone should have a copy!

[Natalie Millican · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really really really want to like poetry, but there are very few poems I actually connect with. I appreciated how he explains and contextualizes most of the poems, and he shares extensive research regarding the benefits both cognitively and mentally of reading and memorizing poetry at all ages. I learned a lot about poetry, but I don’t necessarily connect with most poetry any better. I’ll keep trying …

[halsee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first poetry book that I’ve read and I fully enjoyed it. I thought that it was an excellent collect and I like how the anthology was structured. Some of the poems didn’t resonate with me as much as others but that’s okay. I strongly believe that this whole anthology has a poem for everybody.

Give it a read sometime 4.5/5

[Judith · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing journey into the power of poetry for language development and mental well-being. I revisited childhood poems and memories, explored well known texts and discovered new ones. Now for the challenge of learning some poetry by heart with the new found strategies - the 2 lines of my first poem are in my pocket!

[Jonny Brick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like Charon rowing Aeneas across the Lethe, Gyles takes the reader by the hand and shows them marvellous things. Poetry from the last 600 years - including a good Shakespeare section - appears in a worthwhile anthology, much of which has been chosen to declaim. A fine present to a precocious child or elder relative.

[Mara · Rating 2 out of 5]

2022: In itself a good book and I love Gyles Brandreth, but the longer the poems, the more boring it got. I didn’t really finish it either tbh.
I have never really been one for poetry and this book did not convince me otherwise or convert me I am sorry to say.
Great in principle, just not for me.
4,5 out of 10

[A.R.Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

More than just a collection of poems, this is nothing less that Gyles Brandreth's love letter to poetry, poets and the poetic form. And as with everything Gyles produces it is witty, clever and informative all at once. Can there be a better companion more suited to guide us through some of the world's best poetry, old and new ?

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

A refreshing look at poetry

Well written with many interesting footnotes but the main event is the poetry. Nearly everyone's favourite is here. They are best read out loud. From ancient to modern for all ages. Loved it.

[Greville Seddon · Rating 3 out of 5]

An affectionate anthology to encourage the lost practice of memorising poems. On the whole Gyles makes good, if sometimes obvious choices. I enjoyed his personal stories relating to the selections. And I did try to put it into practice. Must try harder!

[Kirsty · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fab anthology jam packed with pure gold. Beautifully curated in a solid collection that deserves a home in every household. A natural gift book. I just wish I could have gifted this to my younger self.

[Paul Foley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good concept and well put together, with an interesting narrative.
The poems reflect his taste obviously and, as such, they are quite England-centric. There's a smattering of other home country poets.
Glad to have got this book and will return to it.

[Sandra]

Bought with Xmas money after it being in daily mail gift book review n sounding good :)