I Am the Seed That Grew the Tree - A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year: National Trust

Wow! This didn't so much slide through my letter box as arrive with a hefty thump. There's something very special about meeting the occasional book of this size and I think that children will be delighted by the book both in terms of content and but also as an artefact. I Am the Seed that Grew the Tree is published by Nosy Crow, in association with The National Trust. The poem from which the collection takes its title is 'Windsong' (p.234): 'I am the seed / that grew the tree / that gave the wood / to make the page / to fill the book / with poetry'. //. Fiona Waters has made an admirable selection of nature poems one for every day of the year - and, unlike other recently published anthologies that claim to provide a poem for every day of the year, this is unified by its theme which makes it a much more coherent offering. She has also resisted the need to provide any kind of written commentary attached to the poems: indeed, you could argue that Frann Preston-Gannon's beautiful illustrations provide their own visual commentary. Look at 'Birch Trees' and 'Stopping by Woods' (p.14 and 15) - both set white print against a black background offsetting the silhouetted trees; a turn of the page takes us to a bleached out double page spread of snowy poems. Then move to the rich autumnal colours of a September landscape inhabited by Emily Dickinson's apt 'The Morns are Meeker than Ever' (p.237): 'The morns are meeker than they were, / The nuts are getting brown; / The berry's cheek is plumper, / The rose is out of town. / The anthology is commendable for the curation of such range of poems and the ease with which they sit alongside each other. Sara Coleridge's well known 'The Garden Year' (p.12) provides a fitting preface for all that follows. I received this on one of the hottest days of this summer and turned to the poems for August where I was instantly refreshed by the seascapes (p.190-191) and then the cooling 'Lake Isle of Innisfree' (p.192). Swallows pitch across a hot sun to accompany 'August Heat' (p. 196): 'In August when the days are hot, / I like to find a shady spot, / And hardly move a single bit -/ And sit - / And sit - / And sit - / And sit!//. And then how lovely to turn the page again, this time for refreshing rain with a Tigua Song and Grace Nichols' 'I am the rain' (p.199). Schools will, of course, make their own minds up about how best to position this very special anthology in their book collection. My hunch is that it is, perhaps, a book for the library which classes will choose to borrow from time to time. It's a hugely rich resource, not just in terms of the range of poems and poets but also the cross-curricular opportunities offered as it wends its steady, beautiful way through the seasons. 336 pages / Ages 6-11 years / Reviewed by Alison Kelly, consultant.

Suggested Reading Age 7+