By Lília

I’ll tell you how the Sun rose by Emily Dickinson

I’ll tell you how the Sun rose –
A Ribbon at a time –
The Steeples swam in Amethyst –
The news, like Squirrels, ran –
The Hills untied their Bonnets –
The Bobolinks – begun –
Then I said softly to myself –
“That must have been the Sun”!
But how he set – I know not –
There seemed a purple stile
That little Yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while –
Till when they reached the other side –
A Dominie in Gray –
Put gently up the evening Bars –
And led the flock away –

We’re used to thinking about poetry as something angsty and old that might not interest younger generations. But when you look at the Poetry section in The Hague, one of the things that makes an immediate impression is the combined colors of the many poetry collections from both new poets and the more well-known..

In addition to  being interesting anthologies, the beautifully colorful covers capture your attention and imagination, making you want to not only have the books in your bookcase, but indeed to read them daily. From poems by Emily Dickinson, A.A. Milne, Cole Porter, Robert Frost and Anna Seward, the anthologies include many poets worth meeting for the first time or even revisiting.

One example is Allie Esirie, a British actor and producer but also a poetry curator who has published several collections over the past few years.

According to Wikipedia: “Esiri’s first in her series of anthologies published by Pan Macmillan is the bestselling A Poem for Every Night of the Year, which won the IBW Book Award 2017. Her anthologies have been picked as best books of the year in the Observer, New Statesman and The Times.”

After A Poem for Every Night of the Year, originally a children’s poetry collection but read by all ages, she published quite a few more, including A Poem for Every Day of the Year, A Poem for Every Winter Day, A Poem for Every Spring Day, A Poem for Every Summer Day, A Poem for Every Autumn Day and 365 Poems for Life.

These collections are exactly what we need to start the new year:  a poem a day.

Enjoy!