Hello.
I write books, present radio programmes - (if you come from America, you'd call that hosting radio shows), appear occasionally on TV, visit schools and colleges where I do a one-man show and I lecture and teach in universities on children's literature, reading and writing. I usually call myself a writer and broadcaster, though some people call me a poet and performer. I wrote my first book in 1969, it was a play called Backbone, my first children's book in 1974, a book of poems called Mind Your Own Business and I've been bringing out books pretty well every year since then.
The Hypnotiser - is this the world's first video poetry book?
I wrote a book of poems for children called 'The Hypnotiser' some years ago and then it went out of print. I couldn't get anyone to reprint it, so I asked my son Joe to film me performing the book for this website. There are second hand copies of 'The Hypnotiser' available on various sites on the web, most obviously at Amazon, abe Books.com and ebay. Tell me if you like it, and if you do, I'll do the other books of mine that are out of print.
All you need to do is click on whichever poem you want and watch me perform it. The Hypnotiser has its own page and is here.
I wrote a poem! In the midst of the visits to schools, the writing of introductions to books and making radio programmes, I actually found time to think through an idea long enough and hard enough for it to turn into a poem. I thought I had forgotten how to do it. (Not really!) As it happens, I wrote it for Scottish Booktrust as a taster for my Scotland tour in May. Interestingly, it begins: 'I'm lost, I'm lost...'!
The National Year of Reading has begun and I'm very interested to see if this is going to be something that seriously improves the way in which schools help to create people who read books. As yet, I don't see a match between the effort and energy going into the phonics programme and what needs to be done to make schools into book-loving places. I had the interesting experience of sitting in the TV studio of the 'Daily Politics Show' and arguing with Hazel Blears and a spokesman from the Tory Party about the need for school librarians and home-school reading liaison. Needless to say, the moment we started talking about money for this, it was punted into touch. I find it ironic that Monteagle Primary School, which featured on the recent 'Lost for Words' series on Channel 4, has a four day a week librarian and its inventive ways of helping parents enjoy books with their children was superb: the reception staff grab the new parents and sit down with them and share the reading of 'real' books with them. So, instead of simply saying, 'reading books is good', they do something hands-on and practical. Love it.
Ofsted have produced a report on the teaching of poetry, I met its author Phil Jarrett and scurried around a few radio and TV shows responding to the report itself. He makes several points arguing in particular that there isn't a sufficient variety of poetry reading going on in schools. My own view of this is that if you nail schools to SATs and Literacy Hours, you create a school environment in which teachers run as hard as they can to fulfil the requirements of these. What happens with poetry is that many teachers, quite legitimately, feel that they've 'done' poetry if they do what the Literacy Strategy says they should. But on its own, this is meagre stuff. Poetry offers schools the possibility of uniting people through performance, getting to the heart of personal emotions with private, intimate poems and taking children to the point at which they discover they can manipulate language itself. The Children's Poetry Bookshelf has expressed extreme disquiet over the fact that publishers have become very wary of bringing out new collections of poetry for children. I can see why: as schools fulfil the minimum poetry 'norms', these can be satisfied with one school anthology. At this rate, we won't see a new generation of poets writing about their world, in the way that I was able to.
I've carried on with my visits: I've been to Nuneaton, Nottingham, Wakefield, Apples and Snakes anniversary celebrations and Crouch End in London. This was a mix of work in a library, secondary school, university, London poetry night and an NUT branch meeting called 'How not to bore the pants off children'. My visit to Polesworth School near Nuneaton was an absolute delight. I don't think I've ever been to an ordinary comprehensive where the atmosphere was so positive, the work so inspiring. The immediate reason for my visit was to open a language block at the school and to be part of the school saying goodbye to someone I went to school with and who I once worked with during the school holidays in a building supplies yard!
Here's an interview I did with the Bucks Free Press.
Coming up on March 11, programme about Wilfred Scawen Blunt, nineteenth century anti-imperialist, BBC Radio 4
Series of five programmes for BBC Radio 4 on children's play in school playgrounds, as part of an exploration of the work of Peter and Iona Opie.
New series of Word of Mouth, BBC Radio 4, starts at the beginning of April
BBC 4 TV are preparing a series on Children's Literature which I'll be contributing to.
This is a day with the winners of the Children's Poetry Bookshelf poetry competition with poets Valerie Bloom and Wes Magee.
(You can view all the pictures online at Children's Poetry Bookshelf )
I received an Honorary Doctorate from The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust and the University of East London
I'm working this term with Sixth Formers at B6 Brooke House Sixth Form College, and with MA students at Birkbeck, University of London where I teach the Children's Literature Option for students doing MAs in Modern and Contemporary Literature; Critical Theory; Creative Writing; Theatre Directing.
The Wikipedia profile of me is accurate as I check it regularly and it includes a useful link to the British Council's Contemporary Authors site. They've done a profile and appreciation of me along with a complete bibliography.
Booktrust have set up a page written by me for any teacher anywhere teaching poetry. Please, please, please tell others about it and please contribute to it yourself.
Here's a podcast I did with the children of Liss Junior School in Hampshire
This is the George Orwell Lecture that I delivered on December 6 2007 at Birkbeck, University of London.
Please Note: All school bookings are arranged with, and by, 'Speaking of Books'.
You can contact them at:
jan@speakingofbooks.co.uk
Other bookings please contact Sasha at: Sasha.Hoare@booktrust.org.uk
February 25
Basildon Children's Book Festival
February 28
"How not to Bore the Pants off Children"
Ealing NUT, Ealing Town Hall
March 6
Greenwich celebration of World Book Day
March 12
School in Cambridge
March 13
Workshops at the Barbican
March 14
Workshops at the Barbican
March 18
Luton library
March 25
School in Canning Town
March 28
LINCCS event, Haverstock School
April 23
Event at Reading Football Club
April 30
Kingston Readers Festival
May 7
International School, Cobham
May 10
Brighton Festival
May 13
Glasgow
May 14
Dundee
May 15
Aberdeen
May 20
Meet Jack Prelutsky at school in Thorpe
May 22
Institute of Education, London
May 31
Appearance(s) at Hay Festival
June 2,3,4,5,6
Events at the Barbican
June 10, 11
Laureate Event in Liverpool
June 17
Southampton Book Fair
June 25
Holland Park School
And evening with Camden teachers
June 30
Event with CLPE
July 2
Cluster of schools in Nottingham
July 5
Ledbury Poetry Festival
August 31
Reading at Society of Authors conference
Here's my Laureate Diary which also appears in Books for Keeps:
Since I wrote last, I've visited schools and festivals and done performances in Chingford (London), Chesterfield, the Italian Institute in London, Guildford, Belfast, Sheffield, Bedford, Croydon, Kings Lynn, the Tricycle and Soho Theatres and Bookmarks Bookshop in London and a Stop the War benefit in Hackney. I've done three days of poetry workshops as part of the 'Can I Have A Word' project at the Barbican, given the Patrick Hardy Lecture for the Children's Book Circle (to be published in the 'School Librarian' and on www.michaelrosen.co.uk), chaired the Arts Council conference on the 'Cultural Hubs' project, taken part in a discussion about children’s literature organised by PEN, helped judge the Children’s Poetry Bookshelf Competition and presented the award for the Best TV writer for children’s programmes at this year’s Children’s BAFTA ceremony.
We've been pushing on with my eight Laureateship ideas. There will definitely be an exhibition at the British Library on the history of Children's Poetry and I'm working with Morag Styles on that. We're working on the idea that there'll be a conference and performances running alongside the exhibition and a conference - scheduled date: first part of 2009. The A-Z of Poetry tour will kick off with a show at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 14 February as part of the Imagine Children's Literature Festival. The Patrick Hardy Lecture was very much in support of Booktrust's 'Big Picture' Campaign and we definitely have progress on putting together some kind of 'Funny Prize' for the funniest children's book of the year. The interactive webpage for teachers to talk to each other about poetry-friendly classrooms is proceeding apace. I've done some filming for that and I'm hoping that that'll be up and running by January 2008. The other projects are proving to be a bit harder to get going. I'm also hoping that off the back of the Patrick Hardy Lecture we can get together some kind of bank of ideas on how schools can help create book-loving environments both in school and in homes. I'm working with Booktrust on this. My argument in the lecture was that the Government seem particularly keen and thorough to stipulate exactly what should go on in Key Stage 1 classrooms in terms of what they think is the best method to teach reading - Synthetic Phonics - but do not seem equally keen and thorough to stipulate a series of specific ways of encouraging the circulation and reading of 'real' books. Why not?
I've carried on doing my Radio work which has meant finishing the series on the past, present and future of European languages for Radio 3 ('Lingua Franca'), presenting 'Word of Mouth' for Radio 4, including a fun programme about children's playground songs and rhymes with Dan Jones and a special on the languages crisis in Belgium. Also coming up is a programme about the 200th anniversary of 'Jack in the Beanstalk' featuring amongst others, Brian Alderson and another on humour under totalitarianism.
As you can see, no day is the same as the next, so my days end with me looking in my diary to see what I've got to do tomorrow. And, yes, I have once had the nightmare experience of not opening the diary till the morning only to realise that I should not have been sitting reading my diary. I should have standing in front of two hundred children doing 'Chocolate Cake' ! A flurry of phone calls and some pathetic grovelling managed to shift the booking to two days later. By the time I arrived, I was forgiven. Two pleas: may I not be so inefficient again. If I am, may the victims be as gracious as the teachers at St Mary's, Chingford.
This is the Patrick Hardy Lecture.
I mentioned a while back that I've been working with some Sixth Formers at Brooke Sixth in Hackney. First round of work was a performance piece - a kind of 'Under Milk Wood' on the past, present and future of Hackney written for the Write to Ignite Festival. Here it is. If anyone reading it would like to use it or adapt it for a performance, please get in touch using the email address at the top of the page.
The next issue of the NATE magazine has a long interview with me about what I do, how and why.
Here's an article I wrote for the Channel 4 website on Synthetic Phonics.
Here's a little story for very young children that no one wants to publish, so feel free to print it off and read it to someone
People have sometimes asked me about Hackney and Dalston where I live. Here's a website that tells the story of some things going on nearby with one or two tiny contributions from me added to the 'Comments'.
I've often been asked about me and the Oxford Reading Tree. I've been rumbled...
Bookmarks Bookshop have published a book of my poems selected from the political poems I've written over the last few years. All proceeds will go to helping the Bookshop stay solvent. Here's how they've billed it.
"The writer, poet, broadcaster Michael Rosen has been gaining wide recognition of late with his recent appointment as children's laureate. This new collection of Michael's poetry draws together a selection of his most explicitly political work over the past three decades. It includes 'Who Killed Blair Peach?' from 1980, marking the death of the Anti Nazi League protester and London school teacher at the hands of the Special Patrol Group. Other highlights include the extraordinary 'Songs For The Dead', a three part poem composed in the wake of the 7 July 2005 London bombings. The poems in Fighters For Life have been specially selected by Michael and all proceeds from the book go to the Friends of Bookmarks appeal. They are all introduced with a short essay from Michael outlining some ideas as to what poetry is about and what it can achieve politically."
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