A Poem for Every Night of the Year

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Night Mayor Franklefink has vanished from the Transylvanian Express - and it's up to you to solve the case! Part of the Solve Your Own Mystery seri... A Poem For Every Night of the Year is a collection of 366 poems compiled by Allie Esiri, one to share for every night of the year. The poems - together with introductory paragraphs - have a link to the date on which they appear.

Though aimed at children, there is nothing childish about the anthology A Poem for Every Night of the Year, edited by Allie Esiri - a reminder that poetry is for everyone and for every day (or night). It would be easy - but a pity - for adults to miss out. It is a brilliant idea to divide the year up with a poem for every night - it gets round the feeling of defeat that can set in with unwieldy anthologies. A flamboyantly miscellaneous list of authors ranges from Sappho to AA Milne and from Langston Hughes to Charles 1. Adults and children should read in the new year with this book and keep going. -- Kate Kellaway The Observer While I do think it’s entirely acceptable to read a book like this at your own pace and inclination, I will say that the historical significance of the poems, included in the introductory paragraphs, was one of the highlights of the experience for me. Connecting the poems to a holiday or war or event piqued my interest in the corresponding poems. Not every poem fit its date exactly, but the ones that did were more fun to read on the appropriate days.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. I won’t say I’ve became a poem lover overnight, but this was a great stepping stone into a world previously unknown.

Some poems were really enjoyable some were not. There was a good mix of styles and topics. I didn't like the paper this was printed on, very rough, absorbent news paper, not what I want to find in a book. It made me think of cheap toilet paper with a poem a day printed on it, that would probably have made me fit it in to a daily reading. Die Gedichte haben keine Jahreszahlen. Manchmal wird ihr Erscheinungsjahr im Introtext genannt, aber ich hätte diese Information gern bei jedem Gedicht neben Titel und Autoren gesehen. As a child I had a book like this, something I read before I went to sleep every night. I never missed a night for years. So when I saw this my heart leapt. This is a book of poems marketed at children, but the selection is suitable for everyone and includes work by Shakespeare, Keats, Blake and Benjamin Zephaniah. I particularly like how the poetry matches with the seasons and days such as All Fools' Day, May Day, as well as Christmas and Easter, and historical anniversaries such as the Battle of Hastings, Rosa Parks and El Alamein. 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 :)Lots of classics in here and a mix of newer poets also. Some are funny, thoughtful, inspiring, humbling. 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. There is a companion book of poetry called A Poem for Every Day of the Year, and though I haven’t read the companion yet I do want to mention that the night theme in this book felt appropriate to its content. Many of the poems explore night or death or war; there are a few love poems as well, but in essence this is a darker and perhaps heavier collection than I would expect to find in the companion edition. If you’d rather read something a bit contemplative and grim, this may be the poetry book for you.

Allie Esiri's delightfully eclectic anthology takes you on a poetic journey through every night of the calendar year. A fun book for all the family to enjoy. Tatler This useful anthology is aimed at children but I can't think of anyone who wouldn't enjoy it. The target audience ensures accessibility as well as a satisfying blend of light and shade, while Esiri's introduction is a model of economyand enthusiasm. She offers poetry for the small things in life, the every day, and I can't think of anything more life enhancing than opening this book each evening to sweeten the passage of time. -- Bel Mooney The Daily MailFor 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. Das Konzept "ein Gedicht pro Tag" für das ganze Jahr finde ich richtig schön und sowohl die generelle Auswahl als auch die Gestaltung dieses Buches (jeder Monat wird von einer Baum-Illustration eingeleitet, die sich den Jahreszeiten entsprechend verändert) ist äußerst gelungen. Mich haben aber hier und da einige Kleinigkeiten gestört: 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. I started the year with the best intentions of actually reading a poem every night. Reading poetry is a great habit to expand both the reading and writing mind, and though I do enjoy it, I don’t reach for it nearly often enough. But it didn’t take me long to fall behind, so I fell instead into the habit of reading a few poems at a time, 2 or 3 times a week, whenever it best fit my mood and schedule. By updating my progress on Goodreads at the end of each “chapter” and month, I stayed motivated enough never to fall drastically behind, which is an accomplishment I’m quite proud of. Despite my determination last January, I wasn’t actually sure I’d make it to the December poems within the first year of trying. Die Mischung ist unausgeglichen. Manchmal folgen ein paar Tage aufeinander Gedichte der selben Autoren. Ich verstehe die Logik dahinter gleich mehrere Werke einer Person vorstellen zu wollen, aber ich fand das nicht besonders abwechslungsreich.