A Poem For Every Day of Christmas book by Allie Esiri

Former actress, Allie Esiri is on a mission to keep poetry alive and make it cool. She has published ten poetry anthologies including A Poem For Every Day Of The Year and 365 Poems For Life, and her app, The Love Book outsold Angry Birds in its opening weekend. Her latest anthology A Poem For Every Day of Christmas aims to add a bit of festive flavour that families can enjoy together throughout December. Here we chat to her about her inspiration…

When did you become fascinated with poetry and is there a poem that you always return to?

As I child I came across the children’s poems of Robert Louis Stevenson, Christina Rossetti and AA Milne. The poem I have returned to most is probably Us Too by the writer of Winnie-the-Pooh – it’s a wonderful poem about friendship, at any age.

Can you tell us about your latest anthology of Christmas poems and what inspired it?

It was inspired by many Christmas Eves when I read to my children, T’was the night before Christmas, but then looked for what other poems would be fun to share as they grew up. The book has grown to include the serious and secular, from Thomas Hardy’s divine wonder at the nativity, a hilarious Wendy Cope about Christmas music, Benjamin Zephanias’s comic ruminations of a turkey, to the lyrics of our best-known carols and songs of the season.

You have been credited with bringing poetry into the digital age, can you tell us more about your app, The Love Book and is there anyone you would love to do a live reading?

The Love Book app has a selection of the greatest poems ever written, mostly on the theme of love with readings by Helena Bonham Carter, Tom Hiddleston and Damian Lewis. You can search by theme or poet or reader and you can record your own version on the app if you so desire. Poetry has always been an oral tradition and actors really help bring it alive. In answer to who would I love to hear read, how about Meryl Streep? That would be magic.

Allie Esiri You have been described by the Sunday Times as a ‘Poetry Powerhouse’. Why do you think poetry is important?

Not many art forms can fit inside your head but a poem can. And poetry has so much packed into something so short – it’s bite-sized and powerful, offering the shortest way to connect you with another human. I think there is a poem for everyone, not just for weddings and funerals, but for every day of the year.

You were an actress for ten years in the English Shakespeare Company and appeared in Sharpe, Men Behaving Badly and Poirot, what’s your fondest memory of that time?

I had to ride a horse in A Touch of Frost and was not the first to exaggerate how well I could ride, but this involved galloping with a hunt. My horse galloped off, beyond the film set.

Where are you favourite places to spend time in the county?

In my early days as an actress I spent four months in Hampshire filming a TV series called Call Red, our air ambulance was based in Portsmouth and I still love it. My favourite place is Portsmouth Historic Dockyard where you can stand on the spot where Nelson was shot on the HMS Victory and see the Tudor artefacts recovered from the Mary Rose. The New Forest is very close to my heart too and one of my favourite weekend activities is to go for a long walk in the ancient woodland, followed by lunch at The Pig in Brockenhurst. It’s the perfect place to escape to for a cosy Sunday lunch.

What do you love about Christmas, and do you have any special family traditions and memories of Christmas?

We go skating every year, I don’t improve but I still love it.

Is there something about you that people may be surprised to learn?

I was the baddie in that episode of A Touch of Frost.

Published by Macmillan Children’s Books, A Poem For Every Day of Christmas, £10.99, by Allie Esiri is a collection of 31 poems taking families through the festive season

A Poem for Every Day of Christmas edited by Allie Esiri