The message on the label, pictured, is exactly the one we want to pass on to you all this Christmas. It reads:

We hope your Christmas is full of magic and sparkle.

From Kingsland communication group.

The magic and sparkle - the difference poetry can make to people’s lives - was brought home to us at last Wednesday’s Marsden poetry night when Jacquie Thornton kindly presented this gift to thank Write Out Loud for its contribution to a project she initiated at Kingsland Special School, Wakefield. You may recall their ‘poet tree’ communicating-through-poetry project.

In normal circumstances the school hopes that these young people with profound and complex learning difficulties will have started trying to speaking by the end of the school year. On Wednesday, Jacquie played a recording of Brennan reading his own poem, My Dad, right out loud, with Jacquie interpreting for those of us unused to Brennan’s mode of speaking. The school, the children’s parents and of course the pupils are delighted at the difference this project has made in exciting the youngsters about communicating in writing and speech, and they plan to spread the project within the school.

So thank you to you, our Write Out Loud community, whose generosity in sending your poems to hang on Kingsland's poet tree has added magic and sparkle to other people’s lives. We thought that sharing this with you might add the same to yours this Christmas. Peace and creativity to you, from all at Write Out Loud, and at Kingsland Special School.