This delightful anthology consists of poems sent by their authors, many of them well-known contemporary writers, as Christmas cards. It begins with Advent and ends with songs at the year's turning and Epiphany. While a good number of the poems attend to the nativity, others encompass the natural world (plants, animals, and a whole parliament of fowls), weather and time's passing, religious and secular celebrations at home and abroad, and historical and topical events. Rowan Williams celebrates Christ's coming, Wendy Cope welcomes 'the Christmas life into the house', Seamus Heaney remembers holly-gathering, Gillian Clarke cradles a newborn lamb, Edwin Morgan tabulates a computer's Christmas card... Here are eighty poems which together sound a whole variety of notes – hopeful, cautionary, joyous, full of wonder. Light Unlocked is illustrated with engravings by John Lawrence, one of the country's best loved and most distinguished artists.