Almanac: Twelve Poems for 2022

Our poetic version of this much-loved companion features a beautiful poem for each month of the year from the forward/backward-looking days of early January to the darkness of "the year's husk" in December. There's plenty of weather, of course, alongside poems that take stock of the world from indoors: from a stair beneath a window or a bedroom full of sunlight. We also find ourselves in a city street and on a high-rise balcony where birds arrive to forage for crumbs. Everywhere we find a sense that days, months and seasons are to be noticed and relished, whether they bring with them peace or drama: "The days go out with shouting; nights are loud; Wild, warring shapes the wood lifts in the cold; The moon's a sword of keen, barbaric gold, Plunged to the hilt into a pitch black cloud." - from 'Mid-March' by Lizette Woodworth Reese Poems by John Clare, Tony Curtis, Tishani Doshi, Helen Dunmore, Jenny King, Norman MacCaig, Lisel Mueller, Justin Quinn, Lizette Woodworth Reese, Arthur Symons, Sara Teasdale and Derek Walcott. Cover illustration by Clare Curtis.