A number of poems which appear in the diary have been inspired – loosely, or heavily – by other poems, pop songs, Christmas carols and French grammar books.
1st January: Gil Scott-Heron, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (1971)
5th January: Morrissey, Everyday is Like Sunday (1988)
6th January: Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth (1917)
7th January: Emily Dickinson, Because I Could Not Stop For Death (1890)
11th January: Joyce Kilmer, Trees (1913)
23rd January: a tweet by Ian McMillan with the same title and format
2nd February: Philip Larkin, This Be The Verse (1971)
19th February: William Carlos Williams, This Is Just To Say (1934)
22nd February: The Bee Gees, Stayin’ Alive (1977)
24th February: Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (1947)
27th February: The Lord’s Prayer
7th March: Stevie Smith, Not Waving But Drowning (1957)
8th April: New Testament, Mark Ch. 16
26th April: Kate Bush, Wuthering Heights (1978)
27th April: James Brown, Get Up (I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine) (1970)
10th May: Carol Ann Duffy, The World’s Wife (1999)
16th May: Richard Rodgers, My Favourite Things (1959)
19th May: Collins Easy Learning French Grammar and Practice (2016)
8th June: Adrian Henri, The New, Fast Automatic Daffodils (1967)
25th June: John Cage, 4´33˝ (1952)
1st July: Edward Thomas, Adlestrop (1917)
29th July: R.E.M., Everybody Hurts (1992)
2nd August: W.H. Auden, Funeral Blues (Stop All the Clocks) (1936)
25th September: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee? (1850)
29th September: Blur, Parklife (1994)
6th October: A. A. Milne, Buckingham Palace (1924)
11th November: Clive James, The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered (1983)
23rd December: John Henry Hopkins, Jnr, We Three Kings (1857)