Michael Rosen

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Michael Rosen giving a poetry reading as part of the London ESF

Michael Rosen (born May 7, 1946 in Harrow, North London) is a children's novelist and poet and the author of 140 books. (He is not to be confused with Michael J. Rosen, American children's author nor with Michael Rosen, the philosopher and critic of Hegel.)

Rosen's father was a secondary school teacher before becoming a professor of English at the Institute of Education, London, and his mother a primary school teacher before becoming a training college lecturer. They were from the East End of London Jewish tradition, and their ancestors came from Poland, Russia and Romania. Rosen went to various state schools in Pinner, Harrow, and then Watford Grammar School for Boys. In his own words:

"[I] went to [Middlesex Hospital] Medical School, started on the first part of a medical training, jacked it in and went on to do a degree in English at Oxford Uni[versity]. I then worked for the BBC until they chucked me out and I have been a freelance writer, broadcaster, lecturer, performer ever since – that's to say since 1972. Most of my books have been for children, but that's not how I started out." "Sometime around the age of twelve and thirteen I began to get a sense that I liked writing, liked trying out different kinds of writing, I tried writing satirical poems about people I knew."

After graduating from Wadham College in 1969, Rosen became a graduate trainee at the BBC. Despite having previously made no secret of his radical politics he was asked to go freelance in 1972, though in practice he was sacked despite several departments of the BBC wishing to employ him. In common with the China expert and journalist Isabel Hilton among several others at this time, Rosen had failed the vetting procedures which was then in operation. This long-standing practice was only revealed in 1985.^[1]

In due course, Rosen established himself with his collections of humorous verse for children, including: Wouldn't You Like to Know, You Tell Me and Quick Let's Get Out of Here.

Poetry critic Morag Styles has described Rosen as "one of the most significant figures in contemporary children's poetry". He was, says Styles, 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".

Rosen played a key role in opening up children's access to poetry: both through his own writing and with important anthologies such as Culture Shock. He was one of the first poets to make visits to schools throughout the UK (and further afield in Australia, Canada and Singapore). In 1993, Michael gained an MA in Children's Literature from Reading University, and also holds a PhD.

He is also well established as a broadcaster presenting a range of documentary features on British radio. He is also the presenter of BBC Radio 4's regular magazine programme Word of Mouth which looks at the English language and the way we use it.

The English Association has given Michael Rosen's Sad Book an Exceptional Award for the Best Children's Illustrated Books of 2004, in the 4-11 age range. The book was written by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Quentin Blake. It deals in part with bereavement, and followed the publication of Carrying the Elephant: A Memoir of Love and Loss which was published in November 2002 after the death of his son Eddie (who features as a child in much of Rosen's earlier poetry) from meningitis in 1999. In 2004, Rosen published This Is Not My Nose: A Memoir of Illness and Recovery, an account of his ten years with an undiagnosed underactive thyroid.

Rosen has also been involved in campaigning around issues of education and for the Palestinian cause. He stood for election in London as a Respect Coalition candidate. Rosen gained attention at the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007 for his stance [1] against the Israeli-born anti-zionist campaigner Gilad Atzmon, by supporting the argument that Atzmon is an anti-semite and racist and distancing himself from the support given to Atzmon from the Socialist Workers' Party, an organisation whose journals and events he (M.R.) has written for or appeared at for many years.

Rosen was the subject of the BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs program on 6 August 2006.^[2]

[edit] References

^ See Mark Hollingsworth and Richard Norton-Taylor Blacklist: The Inside Story of Political Vetting, 1988, Hogarth Press. The relevant extract is online here.
^ BBCDesert Island Discs