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You can use most of our website without any need to register. All the poem selections and ways of interacting with those are freely available, the resources in the Learning Zone, and lots of information about the Poetry By Heart competition including the competition guides. But if you want to take part in the Poetry By Heart competition or use the Teaching Zone resources, you'll need to register. This is because we need to know who you are and how we can talk to you, and where to send your competition resource pack if you are eligible to take part in the competition.

Registration takes a minute or two. We only collect the information we need to run the competition and we will not give it to anyone else without your express permission.

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Star atop the tree

'That star has a gift tonight:
A birth-gift, a for-all-the-earth gift...'

'Of the three wise men
Who came to the King,
One was a brown man,
So they sing.'

'It was still very far from Christmas
When my momma said to me...'

'There was no light in the stable
only the starshine...'

'Green under tinsel
Glitter and glow...'

'We turn our faces up and jiggle thirty toes,
Morse-coding longing with our restless beat.'

'jollymerry
hollyberry
jollyberry...'

'What on earth, in the middle of winter,
Does the family think it is at?'

'little tree
little silent Christmas tree...'

'Oh, will there be, will there be,
will there be snow?'

'Wrote my Christmas letter to Santa
In the leafy month of June.'

'Johnjoe built a snowman
shaped like a wigwam...'

'Gather round: I’ve a tale to tell.
If you’ve ears to hear, then listen well...'

'I'm fed up looking like Father Christmas,'
Muttered Father Christmas one year.'

'Who were these travelers on the road?
And where were they going? And why?'

'Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas
Cos’ turkeys just wanna hav fun...'

'And every beast by some good spell,
In the stable dark was glad to tell...'

'I walk through Winter’s city,
my footsteps stain the snow...'

'(From the streets of the snowless town came the quiet of
unsung carols and the merry silence of the steeple bell.)...'

'Across the North Sea, in ages past,
rode longships lit with fire-sprites...'

'Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low...'

'Lately they've given me so much to eat,
I'm almost as round as a ball...'

'When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer...'