Poetry Picks for Christmas 2024

By Clive Barnes

Here’s the BfK regular pre-Christmas round up of this year’s poetry books. And, with an eye on suitable poetic gifts for young word lovers, I’ll begin with some bumper anthologies that otherwise might not cross the reviewer’s desk.

Curiously, the four anthologies I have plucked out of the pile for special mention all come from the same publisher. There must be some seriously well-read people at Macmillan. The thickest volume is full of children’s verse chosen by the celebrated versifier Julia Donaldson, with the appetising title of Pick and Mix Poetry. It’s a satisfyingly big book, decorated with warm illustrations from Becky Thorns. And it’s packed with poems that can be enjoyed by children young enough to enjoy The Gruffalo et. al., but with enough variety, excitement and depth to invite revisiting as they grow older. A similar range of poets and subjects from past and present is presented in Heroes and Villains, a collaboration between anthologist Ana Sampson and illustrator Chris Riddell. This guide for teenage readers to the good and bad (and sometimes Riddellifyingly ugly) from legend and history follows on from this pair’s Gods and Monsters published last year. Once again, it rings the changes of subject and poetic mode, this time from Kubla Khan to the Loch Ness Monster, and Shakespeare to Kate Wakeling. Even Elvis (courtesy of Carol Ann Duffy) is smuggled in. A slimmer book from Allie Esiri, A Poem for Every Day of Christmas, comes suitably wrapped in red and green, and might be enjoyed by adults as much as older children: kicking off with Wendy Cope’s deliciously bitter A Christmas Poem and ending with an extract from Tennyson’s In Memoriam exhorting us to ring out the old and ring in the new. In these dark and chilling days, there should be a place on the shelf, too, for Gaby Morgan’s collection of Cosy Poems, although I am not sure the title really covers the contents. There is so much here about wonder, celebration and joy in the world, rather than just wrapping yourself up under a warm duvet.

That’s almost it for anthologies, except to mention the most recent title in Little Tiger’s attractive picture book format collections around a particular theme, which bring together some of the best of contemporary poets and illustrators for children. We’ve already had Our Earth in a Poem, My Heart in a Poem and Courage in a Poem and this year it’s an invitation to Find Peace in a Poem, which mostly means an inner peace and mindfulness rather than the end to international conflict which we would all like to see for Christmas. A valuable state of being nevertheless.

Now for some individual poets, starting from writing for the youngest. A Lot of Silly Verse brings together some of the daftest stuff from collections by the veteran New Zealand writer Joy Cowley. There’s a poem a page, with characterful illustrations by David Barrow. I defy you not to join in with the refrains, word play and tongue twisters. Quality mischief. Rather more serious, as you might expect, is The World to Come, a picture book poem from Robert Macfarlane and actor and songwriter Johnny Flynn, illustrated by Emily Sutton. The text is a lyrical and elusive meditation on the natural world on our doorstep, part dream, part walk in the woods and along the shore, brought down to earth in Emily Sutton’s brilliant colours. So much to enjoy in the sound and play of the words and the evocation of a world both familiar and mysterious. Coming back inside, we might visit Balam and Lluvia’s House, with poems by Guatemalan author Julio Serrano Echeverria (translated by Lawrence Schmel) and illustrations by Yolanda Mosquera. Here we meet brother and sister Balam and Lluvia, who tell us about each other and their life together in their large, airy house and garden. We’re moving up the age range now, with these thoughtful, humorous and sensuous poems likely to be enjoyed by children who may be already exploring their own particular take on the world and family life. Among the everyday delights and surprises in this house of theirs, there are the subtle flavours of somewhere else, that might be round the corner or on the other side of the world.

Former teacher, John Dougherty has been writing for primary school age children for some time. His latest collection Zooming the Zoo, from the flagship poetry publisher, Otter-Barry Books, deserves its own place in the limelight, if just for its cheeky renderings of those required curriculum poetic forms like clerihew and haiku. But there’s a lot more than that. Sarah Ziman’s accomplished first collection, Why Did My Brain Make Me Say It, fizzes with a mix of invention, perceptive observation, and a lot of just messing about with words. There are riddles, poems that you can turn upside down and poems that get scattered over the page: clever, funny and moving, too. Matt Goodfellow’s 2023 verse novel, The Final Year, about a boy in Year Six of secondary school, was a standout winner of the CLiPPA Award for Children’s Poetry 2024, and this year’s slimmer collection, Tomorrow We Begin, revisits the same crazy, dangerous space and demands the same lapel-grabbing attention. And, at the top of the age range, and for anyone who might fit the description of young and adult and has started, or is still, wondering about family, identity, religion, politics, sexuality and language – all the big questions, why not try We Have Everything We Need to Start Again, from South African poet Koleka Putuma?

There were some other choices that I would have included here, but they have already been reviewed by BfK this year, so perhaps I can just list them and leave you to check them out? Old favourite James Carter teams up with Neal Layton with A Ticket to Kalamazoo, Zippy Poems to Read Out Loud. Blue Heart from Nicola Davies brings together her talents as writer and illustrator in equally stunning poems and illustrations in celebration of the whale, and really should not be missed. Nor should We are Family, the first collection from Oliver Sykes, published by Otter-Barry and illustrated by Ian Morris, poems about growing up poor in a busy, loving single parent family.

Enjoy your poetic Christmas shopping!

Clive Barnes was Principal Children’s Librarian, Southampton City and is now a freelance researcher.

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