Today’s choice
Previous poems
Leigh-Anne Hallowby
You used to be shorter
When we first came here two seasons ago
You were barely as high as my hip
Now you can look me right in the eye
It’s almost impossible to believe
You’re not quite as tall as Giannis
But you hope that one day you can
Jump like him
Until then, I’ll chant defence with you
Take you to the park
Return balls in the rain
I’ll watch as you practice your shots
Talk tactics with you every day
And when you get older
We’ll still be in the stands
Foam fingers for hands
Because it’s such a beautiful game.
Leigh-Anne Hallowby is a poet from North East England. She likes striding up hills with a hot flask, and a notebook in her pocket. She’s tried to dunk a basketball, but just doesn’t quite make it.
On the ninth day of Christmas, we bring you Caroline Smith, Bec Mackenzie and David Keyworth
After the lunch he gets his folder
of Christmas games.
On the eighth day of Christmas, we bring you Em Gray, Abigail Ottley and Emma Simon
And now you’re half a spin of the world away,
somewhere I’ve never been, like Narnia . . .
On the seventh day of Christmas, we bring you Sue Burge, Erica Hesketh and Max Wallis
Once there was nothing sweeter than snow
On the sixth day of Christmas, we bring you Amy Rafferty, Tim Kiely and D.A.Prince
We pick up where you left off, searching still,
choosing random cards from a dealer’s deck:
twenty-one crows in a night-time tree,
deep within the dark, with all that chatter
On the fifth day of Christmas, we bring you Paul McGrane, Kevin Reid and Helen Evans
As regular as Santa Claus, she’d call
around at Christmas, the next-door neighbour
and my Sunday school teacher, Mrs Williams.
On the fourth day of Christmas, we bring you Leusa Lloyd, Lydia Benson and Charlotte Johnson
It is always Christmas in the loft
On the third day of Christmas, we bring you K. S. Moore, Kate Noakes and Rachael Smart
Picture this:
little witch girl
in Alaskan wilderness.
On the second day of Christmas, we bring you Gill McEvoy, Rachel Burns and Cindy Botha
On the way to the registry office it snows, flecks of white like spittle hitting the steamed-up bus windows, I worry the petals from my wedding posy.
On the first day of Christmas, we bring you Hannah Linden, John White and Stephen Keeler
. . . Now the villages is
en fête: dressed for a party in the dark,
across the fields, along uneven paths . . .