A delightful anthology of poems sent by many contemporary writers as Christmas cards. From Advent to the New Year, these poems encompass the nativity, the natural world, weather and time's passing, religious and secular celebrations at home and abroad. Wendy Cope welcomes the Christmas life into the house, Seamus Heaney remembers holly-gathering. Gillian Clarke cradles a newborn lamb, and Edwin Morgan tabulates a computer's Christmas card.... Here are eighty poems with a variety of Christmas messages - hopeful, cautionary, joyous, full of wonder.

'one of the most delightful anthologies to be published in years. It's beautifully illustrated and the poems...echo...with charm and sheer joy'Sir Trevor McDonald

Kevin Crossley-Holland's deep interest in the early literature of north-west Europe is reflected in much of his writing. In addition to his Selected Poems and Moored Man, a cycle of North Norfolk poems with watercolours and etchings by Norman Ackroyd, he is the author of The Penguin Book of Norse Myths ,while his anthology The Anglo-Saxon World contains his well-known translations ofBeowulf and many of the shorter poems. His celebrated books for children, including the Arthur trilogy, Gatty's Tale and retelling of Beowulf illustrated by Charles Keeping, have been translated into well over twenty languages. With the poet Lawrence Sail, Crossley-Holland has edited a collection of modern metaphorical riddles,The New Exeter Book of Riddles ,and Light Unlocked, an anthology of Christmas Card poems. He is also the co-author with Ivan Cutting of The Wuffings, a play about Anglo-Saxon East Anglia, and the librettist for Nicola LeFanu of two operas based on medieval legends, The Green Children and The Wildman. Kevin Crossley-Holland is an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford, patron of the Society for Storytelling and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives on the North Norfolk coastLight Unlocked is illustrated by John Lawrence, one of the country's best loved and most distinguished artists.