BBC Radio 4

The winter holidays in all cultures - the solstice, Christmas, Hanukka - involve light and darkness, the year's end, the reckoning we make of ourselves and those we are close to. We feel absences and losses more keenly at that time. Poet and essayist Thomas Lynch considers some of the great poems inspired by winter and examines how deeply the season connects us with our children. Joining Thomas are Matthew Sweeney, Frieda Hughes, Carol Ann Duffy and Robin Robertson. They read a selection of their own poems and discuss what it means to write for children during Christmas, a season in limbo between loss and expectation.