Creativity: a provocation

You can download the PowerPoint of my talk at Mount Kelly College, on 18 April 2017, here: Creativity_a provocation_Mount Kelly College_April … More

In Praise of Rupert

  Rupert Loydell is shouting at the countryside. I have got up at sparrow-fart to drive him to the Blandford … More

#NaBloPoMo 12 – The Alan Booth method

I have been thinking a lot recently about Alan Booth, my English teacher from the ages of 11 to 13. … More

#NaBloPoMo 4 – Sowing in fertile ground

I wasn’t always lazy. As I have written before, I think it became a safety valve for me around the … More

Life beyond the door

Last week saw an important milestone for Teachers as Writers. The CPD/feedback day gave everyone involved in the project – … More

Controlling how poetry is read: Michael Rosen in conversation with Marina Boroditskaya, via Modern Poetry in Translation

  In the last year, another government initiative has created a compulsory part of the curriculum: learning poetry by heart … More

What we talk about when we talk about writing

The more I talk about writing with students, teachers, colleagues and other writers, the less I am sure that we … More

My stammer

I do not stammer, but some of my earliest memories of speaking at school (‘What are eight sevens, Wilson?’) are … More

Lifesaving Poems: Isaac Rosenberg’s ‘August 1914’

August 1914 What in our lives is burnt In the fire of this? The heart’s dear granary? The much we … More

Separate people?

  Jack Palance: Do you know what the secret of life is? Billy Crystal: No, what? Jack Palance: This [he … More

Stealing

  One of the joys of working on the Teachers as Writers project is that I get to steal. As … More

My stats

This isn’t about numbers, but my relationship with them. It isn’t about giving you a figure. (By the time you … More

The Arvon effect

When the Arvon student is put in posession of that creative self, which was hitherto inaccessible, two things, in particular, … More

Living and breathing Arvon

  ‘I’ve been at the field.’ This, spoken by one of the teachers on last week’s writing residential at Totleigh … More

The voice you hear when you write

Writing is about hypnotizing yourself into believing in yourself, getting some work done, then unhypnotyzing yourself and going over the … More

Lifesaving Poems: Langston Hughes’s ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’

The Negro Speaks of Rivers   I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the … More

Out of the Crocodile’s Mouth: a discussion of poetry, education and children, with Michael Rosen and Marina Boroditskaya -from MPT Magazine

Last year MPT Magazine published a brilliant edition wholly dedicated to children’s poetry (Number 2, 2015), titled I Wish… It was one of … More

The fear of poetry -by Muriel Rukeyser

The Fear of Poetry In this moment when we face horizons and conflicts wider than ever before, we want our … More