Off By Heart: Poems to learn and love

This anthology of poems is linked to the heart-warming BBC Off By Heart programme which encouraged children from across Great Britain to learn and perform a poem off by heart. It is a delightful mixture of traditional and contemporary poems, long and short poems, light poems and thought provoking poems by poets ranging from Spike Milligan, John Agard and Carol Ann Duffy to Shakespeare, Tennyson and Emily Dickinson. If there is a criticism it would be that although women poets and poets from other cultures are represented, they are in a minority and, unbelievably, James Berry and Adrian Mitchell are not included. There is an inspiring introduction by Michael Rosen and some helpful hints and tips about how to learn a poem off by heart and then perform it.

Jeremy Paxman said during the programme, ‘Learn a poem in childhood and you’ve a friend for life’. It’s worth remembering that when Brian Keenan, Terry Waite and John McCarthy were imprisoned as hostages in Beirut, they found that reciting poems learned in childhood was one of their comforts and helped keep them going. There are so many children and adults who have never learned a poem by heart; this book is a good place to start.