That’s all, folks
Cleggalike asks:
Did you dislike Watford grammar school as much as I did?
Guardian contributor No, I did not dislike Watford Grammar School! I found it challenging because I came from quite an easygoing co-ed grammar school, and Watford seemed very academic, high-flying, and very aware of its status in Watford and nationally. I found all that a bit overwhelming to start off with – I've written about this in my memoir, out today! – but by the time I finished I am happy to say I benefitted massively from the intensity of the teaching, and there are great chunks of it I have never forgotten. However, I don't think we benefit from schools unless there is something in our background which enables us to access what they offer. I know that's a kind of circular argument, but in my case, my parents were very argumentative and ideological. They exposed everything and anything to a kind of cross-examination. At the time, I didn't realise that what this was doing was enabling me to treat education as if what was on offer were possible views of the world and knowledge, rather than fixed facts that I had to learn. The learning was part of a process, not a process in itself. This meant that most of the time when I was assimilating knowledge, I was doing a running commentary on the knowledge itself. Comparing and contrasting it with alternate views. This was an incredible gift that my parents gave me and it meant that I was never intimidated by knowledge or culture of any kind, and more than that, I have never felt that some kind of knowledge or culture was beneath me, or of lower status. There was an incredible democracy about what they gave me. So yes, I thank Watford for putting in my way Voltaire's Candide, Anthony and Cleopatra, Garibaldi and the 1000, and indeed rugby, as taught by someone who had been an England A team player! But I'm also glad I was ready to absorb it.
Updated
leondixhuitieme asks:
Should all schools be art schools?
Guardian contributor I see what you're saying here! I do believe that all schools should have a core arts curriculum that is guaranteed. We now know that the arts in schools have been marginalised by Sats and Ebacc - I do not blame teachers for this, they are under enormous pressure to succeed, and success is gauged by Sats and GCSE scores. The arts offer a way of thinking and feeling that investigates and reflects on the world. Most tests and exams do not reach this way of thinking. If we practice the arts, this enables us to use materials – whether that's clay, language, our bodies, music – in order to find our place in the world. It doesn't have to be tied to empirical facts; it can suggest or imply or raise questions or raise possibilities. It can express our sense of a culture that we are part of. And it can be a way, perhaps the sole way, in which we can reach out and communicate with others. It can also, for example with a play or dance, be a way of combining with other people, co-operating, collaborating, in ways that are very egalitarian and very empathetic to other people's feelings and intentions. This kind of stuff is gold dust. It may well be a door through to new states of being for the person taking part, or if you want to be utilitarian about it, to jobs. Sometimes the experience of taking part in the arts might be the first point on a journey where people discover they do have worth, ability, and qualities that they didn't realise they had. But for all of us, through expressing our feelings and ideas, we discover more about ourselves, and more about the materials around us (and I've used that word material to include words, music and the like because if you think about it, you can only express language and music through material forms such as sound and computers and pens and musical instruments!).
Wenger – stay or go?
Bakelite asks:
Wenger – stay or go?
Guardian contributor This question cannot be answered unless we ask another one, which is: who is he to be replaced by? It is daft to say Wenger should go when none of us have the faintest idea as to who the Arsenal board could or would line up as his successor. If for example we said Arsene Wenger to go, and Steve McClaren to take over, I'm guessing, but 99% of the Wenger Must Go brigade would say: let's stick with Wenger. I have no idea whether Arsenal are or are not in a position to attract one of the world's top ten or even 20 football managers, so I believe the question in unanswerable and I am saddened that the Arsenal old boys – Wrighty, Keown, Dixon, Adams – earn their crust by turning up on TV programmes to complain about a team that is no less successful than eg Liverpool, and to be so vituperative about Arsene Wenger. It is a bit arrogant to regard the FA Cup trophies won in the last four years as insignificant! It just may be that Arsenal is not and cannot be in the same league as teams who can draw on billions.
Updated
'I was a militant abstainer over the EU referendum'
CharlesII asks:
Have you ever agreed with the Tories – or disagreed with Jeremy Corbyn?
Guardian contributor When we are engaged in politics of course there are times when things are said by people who are our political foes overlap with things we believe in. And indeed there are times when the people we are supporting say something we disagree with. Support and opposition and voting are very broad brushes but as long as this particular way of deciding policy is in place, then we are left with going with the broad brush stroke of one or other that is on offer. That said, I have on occasions been a militant abstainer! For example, there have been times where I haven't voted Labour, for example during and after the Iraq war.
And – I know this surprises and appalls many people – I was a militant abstainer over the EU referendum. It was a question I didn't want to be asked and my view is that it was secretly an argument between different chunks of the ruling order as to how best to squeeze working people for all they could get. It seems so odd to be choosing between two ways to be exploited! I don't expect many people to agree with this but I'm just trying to be honest here.
LyntonCrosby asks:
Did you ever find out what happened to the school deeds that Michael Gove appropriated when he was minister for education?
Guardian contributor I should say that this comment is in error. When schools become academies what usually happens is that the local authority keeps the deeds of the school but the academy takes out a 125-year lease, and the lease entitles the academy to use the premises in any way it sees fit within the terms of Ofsted and the Regional Schools Commissioners. As you may know, I was opposed to academicisation but it's really important that we get our information and detail on this absolutely correct. For example there is an ongoing dispute about one academy where the head thought that it was quite legitimate for the premises to be used as a leisure complex and dating agency, when others have said that is not appropriate. But this isn't because Michael Gove has the deeds of the school! Again, we have just heard how a multi-academy trust in the north of England has failed and it is about to be taken over by another trust. We were told that turning local authority schools into academies was a solution for failing schools. Now we have a situation in which the solution for failing academies is to turn them into academies. Am I missing a bit of logic here?
flettkm asks:
How much influence do you think your award-winning beard has on the timbre of your writing?
Guardian contributor I am pretty sure I know who has asked this question... he is the world's most prolific letter writer! He also has a vested interest in asking this question, in that he runs the Beard Liberation Front!!! So all I will say in answer to this question is that I did once write a story about a child who woke up with a beard.
Updated
NoIDA2 asks:
My daughter Beatrice (eight) would like to know which is your favourite poem. She thinks it’s Chocolate Cake.
Guardian contributor I've discovered that this is the favourite poem of many children. In fact, when I stand up in front of children and ask them: do they have any questions? They usually shout: Do Chocolate Cake! This poem started out as a performance, a kind of standup comedy monologue that I was doing in the early 80s, and I then wrote it down and it went into a book in 1983. Since then I've performed it and changed it and adapted it, so it's become a bit different, and now I've made a book out of the changed performance! This must be the first "book of the show of the book".
I don't really have a favourite poem of my own. I can't bear the thought of neglecting or spurning or downgrading any of them! My wife's favourite is Kaleidoscope, which is in my book Centrally Heated Knickers.
What can we do to encourage a personal voice in children’s writing?
What should schools and parents do to encourage a personal voice in children’s writing? What should they not do?
Guardian contributor An immersion in prose, poetry and plays that children are interested in will lead very quickly to children finding their own voice if you say something quite simple, ie "you could write something like that!" That phrase "like that" conceals something very sophisticated, because it can mean you could write something that sounds like that; it could be something that has a similar theme, a similar scene, a similar moment or character or setting.
But it can also mean something that that piece of literature triggers off. When I work with children I try to stress that idea, that literature can act as a kind of springboard, which enables you to think in what feels like a new way. And if you pick up a pen or get to a keyboard, stuff will flow as you think about the piece that you've just read or heard. If you close down the possibilities too much then children will often feel it is merely an exercise. They feel that it is just in effect a kind of parody to please a teacher or an examiner. I saw this happening in the worst excesses of what was called teaching "genre", during the National Literacy Strategy. I can remember one of my children having to copy a Raymond Chandler way of writing because it was the genre of detective fiction. There was no joy in it, and no invention, and no interesting combinations that came out of if. Think for example - part of the joy of Harry Potter is that JK Rowling mixed genres! She mixed the Victorian school story with the sorcerer fantasy genre. That's part of how it is so teasingly cunning and enjoyable. We should think of literature as a landscape we can live in, and enjoy, and be inspired by.
CoggersandSons asks:
What advice can you give to prospective writers/poets who wish to touch the hearts of both adults and children with their work?
Guardian contributor Part of writing is listening. We have to listen to the people we are writing about, as well as the people we're writing for. As I'm sure you know, this is no revelation, but it is quite easy to stop listening because writing is such an egocentric and obsessive activity. I'm very lucky in that ever since my first children's book came out, Mind Your Own Business (1974), people have asked me to read those poems in that book, and all the other books since, in schools, libraries, book festivals and the rest. I have learned how to perform those and then following those performances I meet people of all ages. That process, the performing and the meeting, is like a form of bio-feedback! People tell you what they are moved by whether that's laughter or tears, and you cannot stop yourself writing to those comments and feelings that people have shared with you.
An example: in one of my poems I talk about someone getting into a van and the van driving off before we have a chance to say goodbye. Several people have told me that this was a starting point for many thoughts to do with loss, bereavement, or indeed political or historical events of quite a large scale. The poem is very elliptical, in other words there are many "gaps" so that when people read it they can sense a feeling without tying it specifically to the actual event described in the poem. What I learned was that there is a certain kind of symbolic writing which can be as powerful as very realistic writing, so people could sense in the poem that there was a level of reality in it – the van, the doors closing, etc – but that it represented something else, something more than itself. I knew this theoretically. After all, a good deal of Shakespeare is like that. Just think of the "To be or not to be speech" where, say, he talks about "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune"! But to write something that was itself symbolic of my mother dying, and then to hear people take their own symbolic meaning into their own lives, was an eye-opener. I shouldn't have been surprised, but until you actually experience that someone who you don't know has taken a symbolic meaning from something you've written, you can hardly believe it will happen!
I realise that's not what everybody does, in order to reach audiences, I'm only talking for myself here, but I hope that's helpful.
Spencebz asks:
Can you describe one of the most joyous events of your life?
Guardian contributor There are so many. This may sound trivial, and it's not the most joyous, but in the late 80s, I was asked by the BBC World Service to present a poetry request programme, and this meant that people from all over the world wrote in to the programme to hear poems from their own countries, and for me that was both a liberation and a confirmation of what I believe, which is that literature may come from localities, regions and countries, but it is an international and "intercultural" form. So we had poems from China, Africa, India, America, all nudging up against each other, and it was wonderful to feel for a moment the BBC was acting as a way in which, in its founding charter it said, "nation shall speak unto nation". And we were doing this through the medium of short poems. So for example, one moment we might hear a poem by William Carlos Williams, and the next a poem from ancient China by Tu Fu, or the next moment from Wole Soylinka, and the next by Keats. I remember walking down Kingsway towards Bush House before making the next week's programme, smiling as I thought about being the presenter of such a fantastic programme. Of course, this leaves out all the joyous moments of family life and love, but we'll leave that to one side, shall we?
ClaptonBlues asks:
You’ve written countless letters to politicians to raise issues regarding education, children, achievement and wellbeing. Do they ever respond? What’s your impression of those you meet?
Guardian contributor No, they never respond. While I was the laureate, I met Ed Balls, Margaret Hodge, jim Knight, and Vernon Coaker. This was all to talk about children's books and libraries. I was hugely disappointed that none of them thought a clear government leadership in reading for pleasure was necessary, or that a much more integrated service between schools and libraries was a good idea either. Later, I met Nick Gibb, the present schools minister, and we talked about the same matter. Nick seems to think that children will become enthusiastic readers if they've done phonics – systematic synthetic phonics, ie what is taught in reception and year one classes for a minimum of half an hour a day, every day; in shorthand this involves sounding out the letters and blending the letters into words. Though he has instituted a poetry recitation contest, and put some money into music education.
I find it very curious that Nick seems to constantly talk about phonics as if that solves the problem of children reading with understanding. It's my belief that children need books that they love to draw them into discovering how to understand literature, or indeed any written text. In my dreams, a government would devote as much effort to what is called initial reading, ie learning to read, as it does in encouraging reading for pleasure. I've yet to see any politician say that or even think that.
'I received abuse from Harry Potter fans all over the world'
ClaptonBlues asks:
What were the highlights of your time as Children’s Laureate? Any lowlights?
Guardian contributor The highlights were around the visits and performances that I did all around the country, and feeling the enthusiasm of children, teachers, and librarians, which supported me in my belief that live performance of children's literature is a fantastic way to generate interest and enthusiasm in reading itself.
One lowlight only: when a Sunday Times journalist asked me about Harry Potter. I said that I liked the Harry Potter books. He asked me if I read it to my children, and I said I didn't read it to my 7 year old daughter, because I wouldn't want to bore her, because you don't want to put off children from reading. Headline in the Sunday Times was: Children's laureate says Harry Potter books are boring. This went all round the world, and of course, I received abuse and indignation from Harry Potter fans all over the world. But of course, the last thing I think are that the Harry Potter books are "boring" and I'm amazed the Sunday Times ran the story without checking me or the Children's Laureate publicity people. It's a lesson in how the press work if they want to be unscrupulous and sensationalist.
Updated
ForzaInterM asks:
What made you realise you were a good writer and encouraged you to write?
Guardian contributor I think I first realised I was OK at it when I wrote my second play at university, called Backbone, and it was put on at the Royal Court theatre in 1969. I think it was when directors and producers at the theatre kept telling me that this worked, and was good, and then in the theatre listening to people laughing at scenes I had written.
My parents encouraged me to write, they were teachers, and they were always interested in the things I tried to write when I was a child.
juliamhope asks:
What is to be gained from the study of children’s literature?
Guardian contributor For teachers, librarians, and people who want to write, you get a deeper and wider understanding of what children's literature has been for, how it is constructed, and the ideas within individual books.
'I was sacked from the BBC for my politics'
CarlBr0wn asks:
Were you really sacked from the BBC for your leftwing politics? What did that feel like when it happened? And what do you make of the corporation today? Have your politics modulated over the years? What do you make of Jeremy Corbyn, for instance?
Guardian contributor Yes I was. I didn't realise because I was asked to "go freelance". Only realised ten years later when it was revealed they kept secret files. It was extraordinary - that back in the 1960s they had been so paranoid. It isn't really "the corporation" when you work for the BBC - it is a huge, highly varied organisation, and one part is nothing like another part.
No, they haven't modulated. Corbyn is trying to do his best to deal with the inequalities of society from within the parliamentary system. I think he will nibble away at the edges of it all.
Updated
We’re off!
Michael Rosen is in the building
Michael Rosen webchat – post your questions now
Michael Rosen is not sure exactly how many books he has written, but as the author of at least 200 picture books, novels, poetry collections, memoirs and more, he can be forgiven for being slightly vague. A former children’s laureate, his 1989 book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt is probably his most famous, having sold more than 8m copies in 18 languages and been adapted for television.
But as you would expect from a writer whose work has ranged from a biography of Émile Zola to viral poems about chocolate cake, Rosen is man of many interests. The ever-changing riches of the English language is one of them, reflected in his role presenting BBC Radio 4’s Word of Mouth. He is a passionate campaigner for the liberal educational issues he made a keynote of his laureateship, and writes about in a monthly column in the Guardian.
Now a prominent supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, he also once stood as a Respect candidate in the 2004 London assembly election. But his politics have always made a point of avoiding solemnity – while children’s laureate, he launched the Roald Dahl funny prize as an antidote to joyless literacy targets and is renowned for exuberant performances for young readers.
His latest work, a memoir called So They Call You Pisher!, starts with his childhood in London with two parents who were prominent members of the Communist party. It also looks at losing his son Eddie to meningitis; and his drive, later in life, to become the family archivist and uncover all their old secrets.
Michael is joining us to answer your questions about his life and writing, in a live webchat from 11.30am BST on Wednesday 13 September. Post them in the comments below, and he’ll take on as many as possible.
Updated
Au revoir – sorry to not answer all your questions, I'm on the Jeremy Vine show in a minute!