Three London schoolchildren will read a specially commissioned poem by Liz Lochhead at the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree lighting up ceremony on Thursday 4 December.

With the Poetry Society and the Norwegian embassy  once again collaborating to celebrate the city of Oslo’s annual gift to London, this year’s poem was written by Scotland’s makar, Liz Lochhead, and is titled ‘How I’ll Decorate My Tree’.  The Trafalgar Square Christmas tree was first sent to London in 1947 as a thank-you for Britain’s support during the second world war.

The poem will be read at the official lighting up ceremony by three children from St Mary of the Angels primary school, at 6pm on Thursday 4 December. The Look North More Often project brings established poets together with schoolchildren to create a poem that will go on display around the tree. Francesca Beard, Malika Booker and Cheryl Moskowitz worked with pupils in years 5 and 6 to write poems about what they would like to hang on the Christmas tree. The words of the children were used to inspire the final poem written by Liz Lochhead and displayed around the base of the tree.

 

How I’ll Decorate My Tree

by Liz Lochhead

 

It was still very far from Christmas

When my momma said to me:

Tell me, Precious, what you going to hang

On our Christmas tree?

 

I said: the fairy-lights that Dad just fixed!

And … jewel-coloured jelly-beans from the pick’n’mix –

Oh, and from it I’ll dangle tinsel in tangles,

Sparkles, sequins and spangles,

 

A round golden coin (chocolate money),

That cracker joke that was actually funny.

My rosary beads – and a plastic rose

As red as Rudolph Reindeer’s nose.