Michael Rosen talks about his role as Children's Laureate and his plans to revitalise the teaching of poetry. You can also read his answers to some of the questions we put to him in our live forum on 18th June 2007

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Michael Rosen grew up in the London suburb of Pinner. He is the author of over 140 books which include poetry collections, anthologies, stories and non-fiction. Morag Styles describes him as "one of the most significant figures in contemporary children's poetry", being one of the first poets "to draw closely on his own childhood experiences... and to 'tell it as it was' in the ordinary language children actually use". He is the presenter of Radio 4’s Word of Mouth. He was appointed the fifth Children’s Laureate in June 2007.

 In a report in The Guardian yesterday you were quoted as saying that education has a lot to answer for in terms of the demise of poetry. Could you expand on that? In particular can you tell us what leads you to that conclusion?

 My evidence comes from meeting teenagers and adults who tell me how they were turned off poetry by school. Well, this is a terrible thing, because on the one hand poets make poetry available to kids, but then their saying, they don’t like it. Well, that’s extraordinary it’s like saying you don’t like bread, or you don’t like breathing. Poetry is infectious, enjoyable, funny, fascinating, terrifying stuff. Maybe not all of it, but for everybody there is a poem they can enjoy. Everyone can write, and say, and sing poems. It seems a shame that we’ve invented a system that puts off so many young people. These are people who go along to poetry jams and sit there, tapping their fingers – tapping their feet to rap and they think that the poetry they do in school is boring and dull. How can that be?

 Yes, I was talking to a student yesterday who had enjoyed watching the animated Macbeth at 11 years old but by the time he’d studied it at school for three years he was saying ‘Shakespeare isn’t my thing’

The easiest way to put people off Shakespeare is, get them to read a bit, and then ask them questions about it. Poring over a soliloquy, and then getting a class to labour over - why is it slings and arrows of misfortune? What is a sling? What is an arrow of misfortune? Is it the same as a sword? Why is it different? is dire. By then their heads are down on the table and they’re bored stiff! You have to get them relating it to their lives. If, for example, you take the scene where Juliet’s father, virtually beats her up because she won’t marry Paris, you can explore what’s going on in that scene. It’s about a bloke who thinks that what he says and does are most important. Look at the things that he says that he’ll do to Juliet if she doesn’t obey him: he tells her she can go on the streets and starve. He’s a fine upstanding member of the middle class community, he’s loaded and he says that she can go out on the street and starve! Romeo and Juliet is the drama of a girl who dares to oppose her parents, not only by refusing to marry the bridegroom of their choice, but by sleeping with the bloke from the opposing family and marrying him in secret. Come on, no-one’s going to tell me that doesn’t speak to teenagers today.

So who do you hold responsible for what you describe as the sorry state of current practice?

Well it’s an indirect process. It seems to come down from the politicians through to willing servants who are prepared to do Government bidding, to come up with syllabuses. Maybe they think they’re doing good in some obscure way, but, they don’t convince me. I see the effect which is strangling at birth the enjoyment and the feeling of literature, and poetry in particular, as it happens.

Are teachers implicated in the problem?

I will not blame teachers. Teachers are on the end of the power relationship with heads of department, head teachers, inspectors, examiners, the Department of Education, the Cabinet, all above them in the tree. They’re caught in the crossfire. So, no, the tragedy is that they are the last people in the process. What I love to hear about, are teachers who’ve resisted the pressure. I know a school where the head teacher sat down with the teachers and devised their own strategy. They’ve developed a whole project around Water and Sea, and the kids are performing, writing stories, poems, talking about the poems, talking about the stories, doing artwork, producing books, making music. And I hear them talking critically about poems. I was in a lesson at this school the other day and the teacher read the class a poem. Afterwards he just said, “Anyone want to say what they liked about that poem?” And suddenly there was a great conversation going on, because they know that it’s legitimate to talk about it. Lovely stuff.

We know what the problem is, and you’ve got two years during which time you have pledged yourself to do something about it. So, what do you think will be the most effective ways bringing about change?

Well, I’m not Superman; I’m only one person. So the first thing is to co-operate with the people doing this sort of thing anyway. So, for example, somebody wrote to me yesterday, who does school poetry jams. All I have to do is make sure people know about it. The Poetry Society sends writers into schools. So I need to think if there is anything I can do to help that? Maybe not. Maybe they’re doing fine, and all they need to say is, “Michael Rosen thinks it’s a great idea.” I’d like create a webpage, which, for the moment, is provisionally called “How do you make a poetry-friendly classroom?” My only rule is that it doesn’t involve asking children questions to which you already know the answers. The idea is that it’s an accessible space where teachers can post teaching ideas and poets can post workshop ideas.

Here’s one of my ideas that I might post on the site: You want to know what to do with poetry? Just simply write out a poem you like in your own handwriting and stick it on the board. Don’t ask any questions about it. It’s there in a public place, and the kids know you put it there. And then just see what happens. Maybe nothing’ll happen. Take it down in a fortnight and put up another one, and then another one, and then another one. Just see what happens. It’s that easy. I’m also very keen on having an interactive You Tube style poetry space. Kids could be encouraged to work in the ICT room, find a poem they like, perform it, film it and put it onto the website. My idea is that the space would include poets like Benjamin Zephaniah, or Grace Nichols alongside kids of all ages. There could be comments and feedback as well.

 I know that you have eight lectures to give as part of your laureateship. Who are,do you think , the best people to speak to in order to bring about this cultural change in the classroom? I’m not sure speaking to policy makers will move things on..

Yeah, that’s always been my policy. I think it’s dubious how effective that can be. They do this is the thing where they hug you to death, perhaps so they can say they met you, and nothing happens. So most of my energy will be doing what I do now, which is talking to teachers and local advisers.

 How does this impact on the publishing of poetry, which seems with a few exceptions, to be in crisis at the moment?

Schools are trying to implement a strategy, so a book comes out called, All the poems you need for the Literacy Hour. If you work in a school with a finite budget are you going to buy that selection or a single poet collection by a relatively unknown poet… or even a well known one? Of course they buy ‘All the poems you need for the literacy hour’ because it ticks the boxes. I’ve heard teachers say things like, “Oh, that poem works well for teaching about similes”. That’s not how poetry circulates!

What we need to do is develop curiosity, interest, and excitement. I think it works like this: I have a poetry collection by Jackie Kay and it’s called Two of a Kind. I share it with the class and wonder why it’s called that. And when we open it we find out that it’s organised like a narrative. It’s about Jackie Kay’s invisible friend when she was a girl. Then we want to know, who is this Jackie Kay? And we discover that she’s Scots but then we see her picture and discover that she’s black, maybe we look her up on the internet and find that she was adopted. There are hints about her adoption in the book. Suddenly we’re engaging with the poems, with the poet. This is of a different order of communication than the one that says, “Term 3, Year 2. Good poem for similes.

” I sympathise with the publishers. They can’t make schools buy the next Jackie Kay.

The publishers don’t publish fiction on the basis of what a school’s buying, do they? So why is poetry different?

Right. Poetry involves a particular kind of experienced reading. I began a poem, I Share My Bedroom with My Brother. Fiction may begin on the very first page like that, but then it goes on to explain who I am, who the brother is, where the bedroom is. In the poem, I don’t explain who I am, there is just this brother – it doesn’t even tell us his name. Where is this bedroom? Never explained. I wandered lonely as a cloud. Who did? Where? Why? Went beside a lake. What lake? Fiction would explain all that. Poetry doesn’t. Typically a poem is one page long. Then you turn over the page and there’s another one. It’s not written by the same bloke. This one says, “What can ail thee, knight at arms alone?” What? Who said that? Who’s speaking? Who is this knight in arms? Nothing is explained. It’s all suggestion. Now this involves a particular kind of experienced reading, which simply means that you get the voice. Publishers can’t create the repertoire that enables you to feel at home with this strange medium. The people most able to do it with young children are teachers.

Thank you Michael Rosen for talking to Write Away.

2007-07-08