Altrincham-based poet Oliver James Lomax has had his poem 'Toy Service' selected by Poetry By Heart, the nation's leading poetry speaking body, for its 2025 Festive Showcase.
The poem, which captures the sight of an altar piled high with donated toys at Christmas, was inspired by the toy collection at Dunham Road Unitarian Chapel for Manchester's Wood Street Children's Mission.
With starring roles for Mr Potato Head and Paddington, and a nod to Victorian poet Christina Rossetti, 'Toy Service' has been described as funny, touching and profound.
It now sits alongside works by celebrated poets including Walter de la Mare and Hollie McNish in the advent calendar-style showcase of seasonal poems selected for learning by heart and performing aloud.
Oliver, who read the poem at this year's toy collection service at the chapel, said: "I am very proud that my poem Toy Service is featured on the wonderful Poetry By Heart Festive Showcase and thrilled that it is up there next to Christina Rossetti, as she, alongside the dearly missed church organist Margaret of Dunham Road Unitarian Chapel inspired the opening lines.
"It is beautiful to see an altar full of toys helping to ensure that all children get the Christmas they deserve. I hope I'm lucky enough to hear the poem in the voices of young people across the country this year too."
Dr Julie Blake, director of Poetry By Heart, said: "It is one of the joys of our year to select the poems for our Festive Showcase and we know how much pleasure and excitement it brings to schools and homes across the country as the poems are read, learned by heart, shared and performed out loud.
"We are particularly pleased to add Oliver's poem Toy Service to this year's selection. Both funny and serious, it offers so much and is a perfect example of how poetry can slow us down, even at the busiest time of year, and show us something we might have forgotten."
She added: "We encourage everyone to make their December memorable this year by choosing a poem they love, learning it by heart and performing it out loud. Free to give but priceless to receive, a poem is a gift that lasts forever."
Born in Bolton, Oliver James Lomax has published five collections of poetry including The Dandelion Clock (2020) and Burial of the Cameo (2023) and has written poetry for film and television. His poems are now taught in schools.
Here's Oliver poem:
Toy Service (2025)
The church organist checks her rear-view mirror
Rossetti’s ghost turns the pages of a bleak midwinter
we are so close, but no one comes near.
One by one we bring our offerings of toys to the altar
and what a colourful army we have mustered,
twice the size of the congregation when we lift our eyes to face them
they are leaving us now for a better kingdom
walking away from the franchise,
from this corruptible world in the great tradition
collected for the Wood Street Children’s Mission.
Deportees, bags packed with the telly off
waiting for the teddy picker god
collectively petitioned with muffled prayer
each masked wish is hushed into the air,
and busy in the silence of my stare
Paddington Bear gazes up at the single chalice flame,
maybe only because it’s the colour of marmalade
but anyway, hallowed, hallowed be thy name
I see all the universes held in the marble of his eye
transcending in that distant travelling light
the stained-glass windows cast kaleidoscopic shades
above a royal city of boardgames,
and a boxed Mr. Potato Head looks on
with King Solomon, as David plays the golden harp
an unboxed Mr. Potato Head searches for his heart,
we are no greater than the sum of all his parts
as we follow that star tonight, as we follow that star.
