One of the most difficult things about grief is that it leaves us with feelings that can be so hard to articulate. Luckily, says Joanna Scanlan, “Poets do the job for us, and thank God that they do!”
The Thick of It star is one of 11 actors and poets, including Alison Steadman and Donna Ashworth, reading verse in memory of loved ones to commemorate Celebration Day on 25 May. Held annually on the last Monday in May, the event has gone from strength to strength since being established in 2022 and has been backed by luminaries such as Stephen Fry, Richard E Grant, and Prue Leith. This year, the campaign has partnered with Hospice UK, Mind and Make-A-Wish.
Inspired by festivals such as Mexico’s Day of the Dead, Celebration Day encourages busy Brits to reflect on the role departed friends and family played in shaping their lives. To mark the occasion this year, writer and anthologist Allie Esiri has curated a series of heartfelt short films featuring readings from Dr Johnson’s House, the house museum of 18th-century writer Samuel Johnson.
The Poems to Remember videos will be published exclusively on The Independent website in the lead-up to Celebration Day. The first, to be published on Thursday 21 May, will feature actor-turned-poet Lucas Jones, whose verse has attracted more than a million admirers on social media.
This year, actor Nathaniel Parker, of The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, reads Dr Johnson’s “On the Death of Dr Robert Levet” in remembrance of his mother, who worked tirelessly as a GP. The work of internet favourite Wendy Cope is read by Sophie Thompson of Detectorists, who selected “The Orange” to honour three independent greengrocers – Mr Roberts, Mr Naidu, and Tony’s – “who have had an extraordinary impact on my life”.
The TV presenter Caroline Flack, who died by suicide in 2020, is honoured by Ophelia Lovibond, who credits poetry with helping her “find my feet again” after the “sudden and shocking” loss of her close friend. Lovibond reads the 1949 verse “Remember” by the Victorian poet Christina Rossetti. “I had never experienced this gulf… this absence, and yet her absence felt like a presence at the same time [...] It was so hard to talk about it, and genuinely, poetry was so helpful in feeding me a line and helping to kind of pull me back in,” says Lovibond.
Scanlan, meanwhile, recites Robert Browning’s 1889 poem “Now” in honour of her childhood friend Sarah, who died as a teenager when she was hit by a car.
The actor highlights the importance of sharing one’s grief with others, revealing that her grandmother had “swallowed those feelings in the form of 12 bottles of whisky a week” after the death of her husband in the Second World War.
“It’s the first time in my life that I’ve explored the happiness of grief,” says British-Pakistani poet Hussain Manawer, whose reading of his own verse, “Soft Heart”, pays tribute to his late mother.
This year Celebration Day will culminate in the Big Toast, when the nation will be encouraged to raise a glass to someone who shaped their life.
