Christina Rossetti's 'A Christmas Carol'

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

An obvious choice for the season.

Perhaps better known as the Carol, ‘In the Bleak Mid Winter’. It’s interesting attempting to read this while trying to ignore the familiar cadence of the sung version.

This is taken from the Penguin Classics ‘Christina Rossetti: Selected Poems’.

Christina Rossetti's 'A Chilly Night'.

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

At some stage i will get round to reading her ‘Goblin Market’ which is a poem I admire very much. But it requires a day when no dogs bark, no one rings the door bell, the wind isn’t rattling the windows and the traffic is muted or slient. Until such a day, this strange piece.

It’s not in my copy of ‘Selected Poems’, but in a fascinating anthology called ‘Poets on Poets’ (1997) edited by Nick Rennison and Michael Schmidt and published by Carcanet.