I’m now debating if I should keep the book or not. I probably won’t be reading it again. But it looks very nice on the outside. There could have been taken more care of the design on the inside, though. To be honest, it looks a little plain. Well, we’ll see. Maybe it gets turned into a present for someone. 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.

As for the poems themselves, it was a mixed bag (which I had expected from the start). Some I've known for a long time, some I love, others were completely new to me, and some were not really good at all. But that is a matter of taste. I did like how diverse the poems were in any case. 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. 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. 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. 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.

LoveReading4Kids Says

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. 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 won’t say I’ve became a poem lover overnight, but this was a great stepping stone into a world previously unknown.

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.A message from Gaby Morgan, Editorial Director at Pan MacmillanA beautiful collection of 366 poems from familiar favourites to exciting contemporary voices, one to share on every night of the year. All the poems havea link to the date on which they appear, and the collection will take you on a journey through history, the season, and festivals and traditions from many different countries, cultures and religions. My candle burns at both ends; / It will not last the night; / But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends– / It gives a lovely light!” -Edna St Vincent Millay

I think it’s only right to end this review with my favorite poem of the year (maybe - it’s not easy to decide). 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. 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. Author Luke Palmer introduces his new book, Play (Firefly Press) about four boys growing up together, the challenges, the friendships, and what hap... 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 ObserverAuthor Guy Bass introduces SCRAP, about one robot who tried to protect the humans on his planet against an army of robots. Now the humans need his... 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 For whatever we lose (like a you or a me) / it’s always ourselves we find in the sea” -E. E. Cummings

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.I posted updates whenever there was a poem I especially liked. So if you want to have a look you can just scroll down. It should be something between 30 and 40 poems. And I think there was a similar number of poems that I enjoyed reading too. But it didn’t feel right to post such a huge amount of content from the book. So, that’s about 20% that I enjoyed reading. The rest? Well, for some reason or the other I didn’t connect with those poems, and some I thought were simply bad. Those were only a handful, though. Some books become lifelong treasures and A Poem for Every Night of the Year, edited by Allie Esiri, will be one of them. A handsome collection, it contains not just classics by TS Eliot and Eleanor Farjeon but modern poems by Maya Angelou and Tony Mitton. It is the best book of its kind since Charles Causley's, and a must-have for nine-plus readers. -- Amanda Craig The New Statesman 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 Die Introtexte schwanken total im Ton. Manchmal geben sie interessante Hintergrundinformationen, dann deuten sie wieder recht offensichtliche Teile des Gedichts (was sehr kindgerecht wirkt), nur um bei komplizierteren Gedichten gar nicht auf den Inhalt einzugehen oder irgendwelche Anhaltspunkte zu geben. 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 Mail