Blog
NEW YEAR, NEW POEMS
Thursday 1st January 2026
Candlestick Press
Whether or not we feel ready for it, the New Year always arrives exactly on time bringing with it a familiar host of hopes and resolutions, plans and intentions. It’s a moment for taking stock and for looking forward – for thinking about places we’d like to visit, things we want to do and (most of all perhaps) people we’d love to see.
In the dark days of January, the year ahead seems to present itself as a set of month-sized pieces. Our annual Almanac is therefore the perfect companion, offering a poem for every month and noticing the particular things that make each unique and precious.
Our Almanac 2026 opens on a note of hope and joyful anticipation:
“Earth’s little weary peoples fall on peace
And dream of breaking buds and blossoming,
Of primrose airs, of days of large increase,
And all the coloured retinue of spring.”from ‘January Dusk’ by John Drinkwater
What could be better than starting every new month with a poem? We hope this beguiling and varied selection will encourage you to do just that. And if the Almanac leaves you wanting more of the same, don’t forget our seasonal quartet: Ten Poems for Spring, Ten Poems for Summer, Ten Poems for Autumn and Ten Poems for Winter.
We have plenty of other titles to help usher in the promise of a New Year. Ten Poems of Light and Ten Poems of Hope have beautiful covers by contemporary British artists and contain poems that are guaranteed to be uplifting and consoling.
Ten Poems of Light was published to help mark Candlestick reaching the landmark of one million pamphlet sales. It’s a suitably celebratory title, offering light in many glorious guises. There’s celestial light in the form of the sun, moon and stars, the miracle of the Northern Lights as well as the lighting of a candle in memory of a loved one.
At the heart of the selection is a poem that glows with the joy of summer sunshine – something we all long for in the deep mid-winter:
“We breathe in all the brilliance, hands salted, the sun
stacked in the barns of memory: look!
our store of summer radiance, safely gathered in.”from ‘Sea-light’ by DA Prince
Other titles in our range lend themselves to the New Year making of plans – Ten Poems about Walking, Ten Poems about Birds and Ten Poems about Trees, for example, all encourage us to look outdoors and think about how we can best experience the world that lies beyond our front doors. What better gift for a friend who might be looking for a new lease of life than one that celebrates how uplifting it can be to encounter a bird (in this case a skylark) in its natural habitat:
“You’re the lift and balance the soul feels,
The terrible, tremulous, uncertain thrill of it –
You’re all the music the heart needs…”from ‘Skylark’ by Katrina Porteous
For anyone in search of poems to accompany a New Year resolution, Ten Poems about Walking and Ten Poems about Running offer contrasting moments of joy and humour. In the opening poem of Ten Poems about Walking edited by Sasha Dugdale we experience a moment of solitary peace and bliss:
“There the hills backed off in a spacious horse shoe
On that flat plane I was the only upright
The banks were low, looped in a contour line
The lake had nothing to mirror but the sky.”from ‘Lake’ by David Constantine
In contrast Ten Poems about Running (edited by keen runner Stephen Keeler) explores every imaginable aspect of the world’s most popular sport. In a poem by Carole Bromley that humorously finds excuses, the twelfth reason for not taking part in a race is “being overtaken by the pantomime camel”. This contrasts with the exhilarated freedom experienced by a lone runner out in the morning:
“Like I was someone that today could spare.
Make light of, brush away, not its affair.
One that today could do its work without,
Be fond of, being unconcerned about.”from ‘Mr F Gets Fit’ by Glyn Maxwell
Last for the New Year (but most certainly not least) we have a much-loved title that celebrates the abiding power of friends and human connections. Ten Poems about Friendship edited by Lorraine Mariner explores everything from alliances at school and the angst of teenage years to the companionship and redemption of old age. The selection demonstrates that friendship poems come in as many different shapes and sizes as our friends themselves. Over and again we experience the comfort of having a steadfast friend we know we can count on:
“Two people, yes, two lasting friends.
The giving comes, the taking ends.
There is no measure for such things.
For this all Nature slows and sings.”from ‘Friendship’ by Elizabeth Jennings
We firmly that believe that poems make life better, and we hope that you’ll find something in our ever-growing range that will enrich your own life or that of a friend or relative.