Friday 24 August 2007

This guy wants your kids to read more poetry!

That's because this guy is Michael Rosen, Britain's Children's Laureate. (Maybe Canada should have one of these...)

This is from the Scotsman:
SOME people have faces which are just naturally funny. When Michael Rosen starts to perform one of his much-loved poems for children, his eyes bulge with excitement and his mouth spreads into a broad grin with a big ear on either end. It's the kind of face which made him Quentin Blake's model for the BFG. The kind of face you warm to.

It's now the new face of children's literature, since Rosen was appointed Children's Laureate in June. The two-year appointment, previously held by the likes of Michael Morpurgo and Jacqueline Wilson, aims to raise the profile of writing for children. Rosen, 61, is the fifth Laureate, and the first poet to hold the position.

Each Laureate is given the opportunity to advance projects of their own, and Rosen is bursting with ideas. Over coffee in a greasy spoon near his home in Hackney, he enthuses about a YouTube-type interactive website for performance poets, a children's poetry roadshow, literature trails, poetry-friendly classrooms and a prize for the funniest children's book of the year. He's got two years and the clock is ticking. No point hanging about. There is a sense in which the Laureateship has simply given a formal shape to what Rosen has been doing for 30 years.
Read the whole story here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Paul

My name is Dave Webb, I am a Performance Poet in the UK and am doing my little bit to engage as many children, of all ages, to write and read and in particular to PERFORM.

I can be Googled just enter Dave Webb, Performance Poet.
Take care
Keep up the good work

DAVE