Poem-a-Day Advent Calendar (40 Days)

In addition to traditional disciplines like fasting and prayer, I enjoy reading poetry during liturgical seasons like Advent. It calms my mind and helps me lean into the themes of each season.

Join me in this practice with a poem-a-day Advent calendar. This printable is a curated list of 40 short poems for each day of the Orthodox Nativity Fast (Nov 15 - Dec 24), but can also be adapted for Western Advent (Dec 1 - Dec 24). Poems were selected that somehow reflect Advent themes like waiting, longing, incarnation, light, darkness, and… snow.

Includes:

• Printable pdf with a poem to read for the forty days of Advent observed by Orthodox/Eastern rite Christians (Nov 15-Dec 24).*
• A short article on how to integrate poetry reading with the Advent season and how to read poetry if you're new to it.
• Each day of the calendar incudes the date, the name, and author of the poem (with a hyperlink for easy access) as well as a focus word to help guide reading and reflection.

Other details:

• This calendar can be used for any year.
• NOT INCLUDED: Poems are not provided in their entirety for copyright reasons, but all are easily accessible with Google.

*If you observe Advent according to the Western calendar, simply start the advent calendar with December 1 instead of November 15. There is no sequential scheme for the order of the poems, so you're not missing out!