Michael Rosen

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Michael Wayne Rosen

Michael Rosen giving a poetry reading as part of the London ESF.
Born 7 May 1946 (1946-05-07) (age 62)
Harrow, Middlesex, England
Occupation Children's novelist and poet
Nationality British
Genres Children's literature
Official website
For other persons named Michael Rosen, see Michael Rosen (disambiguation).

Michael Wayne Rosen (born 7 May 1946 in Harrow, London, and brought up in Pinner, Middlesex, in England), is a broadcaster, children's novelist and poet and the author of 140 books. He was appointed as the fifth Children's Laureate in June 2007, succeeding Jacqueline Wilson, and holds this honour till 2009.[1]

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[edit] Life and career

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.[2]

After graduating from Wadham College in 1969, Rosen became a graduate trainee at the BBC. Among the work that he did while there in the 1970s was presenting a series on BBC Schools television called WALRUS (Write And Learn, Read, Understand, Speak). He was also scriptwriter on the children's reading series Sam on Boff's Island. 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 were then in operation. This long-standing practice was only revealed in 1985.[3]

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".[cite this quote]

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, he gained an M.A. in Children's Literature from Reading University, and also holds a Ph.D. from the University of North London.[4]

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 his earlier poetry. 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 June 2004 in London as a Respect Coalition candidate[5]

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

[edit] Personal life

Rosen has been married three times, and is the father of five children and two step-children. His oldest child was born in 1976 and his youngest in 2004. His son Eddie was born in 1980 and died in 1999, not long before he was nineteen, from meningococcal septicaemia.[7][8]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "Rosen is chosen for laureate role", BBC News, 2007-06-11. 
  2. ^ Michael Rosen interview. WriteWords Writers' Community (?February 2006). Retrieved on 2007-06-29.
  3. ^ See Hollingsworth, Mark; Richard Norton-Taylor (1988). "MI5 and the BBC Stamping the 'Christmas Tree' files (chap. 5)", Blacklist: The Inside Story of Political Vetting. London: Hogarth Press, 104. ISBN 0701208112 (pbk.). 
  4. ^ Tucker, Nicholas. "Interview: Why Michael Rosen will relish being the Children's Laureate", The Independent, 2007-07-20. 
  5. ^ Leslie Steigel; Joyce Bainbridge (Fall 2004). "From Poetry to Politics: The Gifts and Talents of Michael Rosen". Language and Literacy 6 (2). 
  6. ^ Desert Island Discs: Michael Rosen. BBC Radio 4 (2006-08-06). Retrieved on 2007-12-14.
  7. ^ Jardine, Cassandra. "'As teenagers, my boys read football programmes...'", The Daily Telegraph, 2007-06-21. 
  8. ^ Biographical information apparently provided by Michael Rosen on 19 December 2007.

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

[edit] General

[edit] Book reviews

[edit] External links


Persondata
NAME Rosen, Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rosen, Michael Wayne
SHORT DESCRIPTION British children's novelist and poet
DATE OF BIRTH 7 May 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Harrow, London, England, United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Languages