A Poet for Every Day of the Year Archives

A Poet for Every Day of the Year Video at the National Theatre

On March 4, 2022March 4, 2022 By helenistic No Comments

Poetry Event Dedicated to Helen McCrory

by National Theatre | YouTube | March 3, 2022

Join us to journey through a calendar year in poetry, read by actors on stage at the National Theatre. Allie Esiri and Damian Lewis were joined by friends including Simon Russell Beale, Fay Ripley, Danny Sapani and Lesley Sharp. Chris Riddell live drew the evening. A Poet for Every Day of the Year is dedicated to Helen McCrory, who took part in some of these poetry evenings in previous years.

Signed copies of A Poet for Every Day of the Year are available from the National Theatre Bookshop here. Every purchase supports the work of the National Theatre: https://shop.nationaltheatre.org.uk/p…

This event was performed on the Lyttelton stage, National Theatre, London on Tuesday 25 January 2022.

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Damian Lewis Events Poetry Print Media Tributes

A Joyful Tribute to Helen McCrory by Damian Lewis

On January 31, 2022 By helenistic No Comments

A Poet for Every Day of the Year at the National Theatre

Quentin Letts | The Sunday Times | January 30, 2022

Helen McCrory and Damian Lewis in 2015 MIKE MARSLAND/WIREIMAGE/GETTY IMAGES

A Poet for Every Day of the Year
Lyttelton, National Theatre, London SE1
★★★★☆

Helen McCrory’s voice had not crackled across the Lyttelton stage since her 2016 performance in The Deep Blue Sea, but it was heard again on Tuesday when a poetry reading in her memory closed with grainy footage of her at a similar event some years back. That McCrory voice, rich as brandied cake, delivered Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese. Amid despair “the world goes on” and clear pebbles of rain continue to drift across prairies while wild geese, high above, “are heading home again”.

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Damian Lewis Events Poetry Print Media Readings Tributes

A Poet for Every Day of the Year at the National Theatre – Helen McCrory remembered in powerful evening

On January 29, 2022January 29, 2022 By helenistic No Comments

A variety of readers took the stage to mark the new anthology

by Sarah Crompton | What’s on Stage | January 26, 2022

*A Poet for Every Day of the Year* © Urszula Soltys

There’s something about poetry. Spending an hour listening to a company of fine actors reading verse aloud is like simultaneously being offered a hug and a cold shower of clarity in one all-embracing package. It feels comforting and stimulating at the same time.

When the event is dedicated to the memory of Helen McCrory, who had performed at similar events over the years, there’s an additional patina of melancholy, but also of pertinence. She thought poetry mattered and supported Allie Esiri’s passionate determination to make it a part of our daily lives. We would do well to listen.

Continue reading A Poet for Every Day of the Year at the National Theatre – Helen McCrory remembered in powerful evening

Damian Lewis Events Poetry Print Media Reviews Tributes

A Poet for Every Day of the Year review: Ode to Helen McCrory cuts to the heart of the matter

On January 26, 2022 By helenistic No Comments

An Ode to Helen McCrory at the National Theatre

by Dominic Maxwell | The Times | January 26, 2022

Damian Lewis paid fitting tribute to his late wife URSZULA SOLTYS

★★★★☆

How would Damian Lewis, making his first stage appearance since the death of his wife Helen McCrory last April, begin an occasion dedicated to her memory? With a no-nonsense nod to the mixture of happiness and sadness of being at an occasional poetry reading event that she had taken part in previously herself? With a poem in her honour, performed to a well-scrubbed crowd (including McCrory’s friend Helena Bonham Carter) who had turned out to see him and Sir Simon Russell Beale, Fay Ripley, Danny Sapani and Lesley Sharp reading from the latest anthology of 366 poems edited by the evening’s organiser and host, Allie Esiri?

Continue reading A Poet for Every Day of the Year review: Ode to Helen McCrory cuts to the heart of the matter

Books Damian Lewis Events Poetry Print Media Tributes

A Poetic Tribute for Helen McCrory

On September 14, 2021November 25, 2021 By helenistic No Comments

Allie Esiri Dedicates “A Poet for Every Day of the Year” to Helen

by Richard Eden | Daily Mail | September 14, 2021 & by Robbie William | Londoner’s Diary | September 15, 2021

Helen McCrory, who died in April aged 52 after a secret cancer battle, was honoured last night, September 13, 2021, at a party in London’s Holland Park.

The event marked the publication of a book by her close friend Allie Esiri, who has dedicated anthology A Poet For Every Day Of The Year to her.

‘Helen loved poetry and was brilliant at reading it,’ Esiri tells me. ‘I asked Damian [Lewis, McCrory’s actor husband] for his blessing and he gave it.’’

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