Michael Rosen

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and six, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

Mike Costaway this week is a poet, performer, and writer. He's created more than a hundred books, mostly for children, including anthologies, picture books, stories, and poems. He's a natural communicator, always informal, but above all truthful. His stories are real.

Presenter0:45

In his last year at Oxford he had a play produced at the Royal Court, and then he joined the B B C as a general trainee, but he was sacked after three years, only learning later that his parents' Communist background had been one of the reasons behind his dismissal.

Presenter0:58

One of his children, Eddie, died suddenly at the age of eighteen, an event that changed his life and has informed his work ever since. You have to be utterly ruthless with your feelings, he says. You can't tell Phibbs. He is Michael Rosen. Michael, your honesty in some of the moments that you describe is is very painful. Why wouldn't it work if you made it up? Why can't you tell Phibbs?

Michael Rosen1:24

You can't tell fibs because it won't the the the poem won't work. If you tell a fib about what you're feeling, the next time you read it you'll be embarrassed by it, you'll feel awkward about it and it won't do the the brain work for you because when you write about something honestly, when you look at it on the page, it can talk back at you and you can look at yourself almost as if you're another person.

Presenter1:51

You've written, of course, very honestly about the death of Eddie, your eighteen year old. I mean, I I winced to quote it, but it is what we're talking about. You you write when when you got your son's body back after the post mortem. You write

Presenter2:05

I put my hand on his chest, and it rustled. Under his shirt they dressed him in a bin bag. They must have cut him about to find out what happened. Um it's it's very convincing, and you certainly wouldn't fabricate that for effect, would you?

Michael Rosen2:20

No, there was a polythene bag under his shirt, I think.

Michael Rosen2:23

Um

Michael Rosen2:25

I think I wanted there to connect with the fact that bodies are real.

Michael Rosen2:30

And I liked the

Speaker 12:30

I love

Michael Rosen2:32

The material thing that there was his body, and we could stroke him, and we could see that his hair went on growing after he died.

Michael Rosen2:39

And my brother actually took photographs of it and they're and they're appalling but in some way or another reassuring because he did die and that's

Michael Rosen2:48

That's the real thing about his death, so that's that was I think why I wrote that.

Presenter2:54

I I understand that but it is intensely personal, that's all, and you share all of these things n n not just about Eddie, but all sorts of things about you. I mean, there are whole swathes of strangers out there who know everything about you. It's it's a strange thing you have to give. You have to give an awful lot of yourself if you're your kind of poet, don't you?

Michael Rosen3:14

Yes, somewhere or another I've become a kind of confessional poet, but I can draw things out of my head of things that have happened to me.

Presenter3:20

You know, you tapped into a rich theme which is your life, which is quite colourful, as we shall hear. Give give us just a a quick poem to give us the feel of your family before we go into your first record, and then we can.

Presenter3:32

Thunder it after that.

Michael Rosen3:32

Thunder

Michael Rosen3:33

This comes from my first book, which was Mind Your Own Business. And it goes like this.

Michael Rosen3:37

Father says Never let me see you doing that again.

Michael Rosen3:42

Father says, Tell you once, tell you a thousand times, come hell or high water, his finger drills my shoulder. Never let me see you doing that again.

Michael Rosen3:55

My brother knows all his phrases off by heart.

Michael Rosen3:59

So we practice them in bed at night.

Presenter4:02

Great stuff.

Michael Rosen4:03

And this is the way it was, you know. My brother was brilliant at imitating my dad. Well, my dad, if he wanted you to be quiet, okay, he didn't say shush or shut up or be quiet, he just used to go like this.

Michael Rosen4:11

The noise

Michael Rosen4:13

Just like that. So my brother used to walk around going, The noise every time I made a racket, you see, and that would sort of disarm my dad just as his hand was going up to his forehead to go, The noise, like that.

Michael Rosen4:24

Yes.

Presenter4:25

Great stuff. More to come. Let's have your first record. What is it?

Michael Rosen4:28

It's um Oh, what a lovely war and really it's to remember the wonderful times my parents used to take me well, we used to schlep right the way across London from the suburbs where we were brought up in Pinna all the way down to Stratford East in East London. So in my teenage years there I was going to see Oh, what a lovely war and it would be good to have a little bit of irony, I thought.

Michael Rosen4:51

On the island. It wasn't a lovely boar, was it? As we know only too well, so, oh, what a lovely boar.

Speaker 14:58

But it's a lovely one who would be

Speaker 25:01

Just hold your end, oh it's a shame to take the blame As soon as your body is gone

Speaker 25:07

We are just as heavy as it, but we never get up till the sergeant brings our breakfast up to bed.

Speaker 25:12

How, how, how it's a lovely warning.

Speaker 25:16

What do we want with Antoine? When we got one with Apple Jam?

Speaker 25:20

War falls right turn as we spend the money we earn. Oh, oh, oh, it's a lovely war.

Presenter5:26

Was the title track from the nineteen sixty three original cast recording of Oh, what a lovely war. Do you think poetry, Michael, was always destined to be your medium? Was it always going on in the house in Pinna?

Michael Rosen5:37

Yes, my mum in particular, um I can see her sort of sitting on the sofa dreamily thinking about WB Yeats. And um yes, uh they were we used to have t uh records as well. We used to have records of Dylan Thomas um doing um the whole

Presenter5:53

And the milk were nice.

Michael Rosen5:53

Well, it was it was Under Milkwood, and there was also Richard Burton reading Fern Hill. And my brother is all part of the take-offs of my dad and so on. He would do take-offs of these things. So, you know, there's a little bit he goes, and it was all shining like that. We'd do.

Presenter6:07

Mother was obviously quite a character.

Michael Rosen6:09

Oh, absolutely. We shared a bedroom, you see, so he would like I think he used it as his stage, really. I mean, he was sort of on one side of the room, acting out the Molesworth books, and my dad, never let me see you doing that again. And also, you know, in the old days when it was the third programme, they would have these recordings of poets reading their own poems. And my parents would say, I think the boys would like this. Yeah, right. You would hear the announcer say, And now we have a very rare recording of the poet W. B. Yates, William Butley Yates, reading his poem L'Kal Vinis Free. Before we play you this recording, we would like to point out the rather extraordinary incantatory style of delivery of the poet W. B. Yates. And also we would apologise for the poor quality of the recording as it was recorded on wax cylinders. And then you hear.

Michael Rosen6:57

And this far away voice going, I will arise and go to any Well, you see, my parents would be sitting there nodding, listening to this really seriously. But of course my brother said, Why don't we get it up as an act? You see? And one of us would do the

Michael Rosen7:12

And then the other will do I will arise now

Speaker 27:12

And the other would do.

Michael Rosen7:14

And we'd do this act at the kind of least appropriate moments, like breakfast or something like that. And of course, my dad could go, the noise.

Presenter7:19

And they posted.

Michael Rosen7:22

There we are.

Presenter7:22

You would disapprove. Because he apparently, I mean, he was a teacher. They were both teachers.

Michael Rosen7:24

Yeah.

Michael Rosen7:26

Yes, that's right.

Presenter7:28

Yeah, but your brother was obviously a kind of third parent, wasn't he? Oh, yeah.

Michael Rosen7:32

Oh, yes, four years older than me, and and he was like a teacher as well, my brother, you know. He he thought I don't know quite why he took on this job, but he thought that everything he learnt at school he had to teach me.

Michael Rosen7:43

So can you imagine, you know, I'm at primary school and he's teaching me algebra.

Michael Rosen7:47

I don't understand it.

Presenter7:49

Record number two.

Michael Rosen7:50

At record number two, we'll have Ewan McColl singing Fortune's a Day, and it's from an album called Shuttle and Cage. Ewan McColl was quite a presence in our house. I think people forget about Ewan McColl. They remember that he wrote First Time I Saw Your Face or Maybe Dirty Old Town, but he was a great

Michael Rosen8:06

discoverer. He was a great archaeologist and discovered

Michael Rosen8:10

this whole body of song and poetry that was made up in the nineteenth and early twentieth century that we don't really have a word for it, but you could call it industrial song.

Michael Rosen8:21

The songs and ballads that working people made up through the time of the Industrial Revolution and beyond. Fourpence a day.

Speaker 28:29

And the little slaves come to the door to knock, knock, knock.

Speaker 28:33

Come me little washer light

Presenter8:35

Come, let's aware, it's vara hard to walk for fourpence a day. Me daddy was a miner and lived down in the town.'Twas hard work and poverty that all has kept him down. He aimed for me to go to school, but brass he couldn't pay. So I had to go to the washing rig for fourpence a day. That was Ewan McColl, and fourpence a day. Your dad as well was obviously a bit of a performer, as obviously wear.

Presenter9:04

Mize and Bryce get it from. Um

Presenter9:07

But for a long time you didn't know you were a performer, I understand. You went to a a school, didn't you, and read out a poem and they taught you how to read your own poetry.

Michael Rosen9:15

Yes, I'd I'd produced Mind Your Own Business.

Michael Rosen9:19

And I arrived at this school, Princess Frederica, an inner city primary school in Kensal Rise in West London. And I'd been invited there by a wonderful deputy head, an Irish guy called Sean. He put me in front of there must have been three or four hundred kids, three or four hundred primary school kids, and said, And now, boys and girls, this is really wonderful. We've got the man who writes all those lovely poems, Michael Rosen.

Michael Rosen9:42

And I stood in front of his care and I was just horrified. And this was about the first time I'd I'd sort of been anywhere near an audience that size and like that. And so I held the book in front of my face and I went A Ship in the Darkness at the end of the trip. The man on board's the captain of the ship. The name of the man is Old Ben Brownie, played the ukulele with his trousers down.

Michael Rosen9:59

and I saw the look of horror on his face.

Michael Rosen10:02

And so he just suddenly turned to the kids and he went, It doesn't go like that, does it, boys and girls? And there was this huge roar. No, Mr. McAlaine, no and he said, How does it go? and the whole school went, The ship in the docks at the end of the trip, The man on board is the captain of the ship. The name of the man was old Ben Brown and he played the ukulele with his trousers down, with his trousers down and he was dancing about doing this. And I di my face I just my jaw just dropped and I was looking I had no idea that you

Michael Rosen10:31

Could do that with this stuff I'd written. I don't know why I'd never made the match.

Presenter10:36

And did it alter the way you wrote stuff after that? I mean, did you you wrote in squeaks and burps for yourself, did you?

Michael Rosen10:38

Yeah.

Michael Rosen10:41

Yes, and sounds and it had never occurred to me that you could make it into a whole

Michael Rosen10:47

Acti piece

Presenter10:48

Hmm.

Presenter10:49

Equal number three.

Michael Rosen10:51

Well, we'll have Big Bill Brunzy singing Black, Brown, and White. So there we are in the suburbs. My brother and I, and we're listening to this wonderful blues guitarist and singer, Big Bill Brunzy, and this song about discrimination before Martin Luther King. The song comes from 1951. We were listening to it in the 50s. Here it is: Black, Brown, and White.

Speaker 111:11

I went to an employment office, I bought a number and I got in line.

Speaker 111:19

They call everybody's number, but they never did call mine. They said if you was white.

Presenter11:29

Uh

Speaker 111:29

If you

Presenter11:30

Brown, you can stick around, but as you black

Presenter11:36

Um

Presenter11:41

Big Bill Brunzy and Black, Brown and White. Um so then you toyed with becoming a doctor, Michael Rose, and started instruction in dissection. Let me quote you six of us used our scalpels to find out what an old woman was made of, you write. It didn't last long, did it?

Michael Rosen11:56

No. I spent a year at Middlesex Hospital Medical School and I thought, um I don't really want to be doing this. Uh how can I get out? And my brother was at Oxford, at Wadham College, and my brother had told me how people did switch courses around at Oxford, and so I applied and I got in.

Presenter12:13

But you swap to English for some way.

Michael Rosen12:13

Good.

Michael Rosen12:15

In some way, you managed to do this. I did, that's right. So, the problem was to you have to go and see somebody, don't you?

Michael Rosen12:23

The boss of Wadham College at the time was uh an extraordinary bloke called Sir Maurice Bowra, who had a very strange way of talking and it kind of went up and down, and sort of Stephen Fry times three, you know.

Presenter12:33

The legendary figure. Yes. Solar great wit, of course.

Michael Rosen12:36

Absolutely. And so, you know, we went in, I sat down, and he went.

Presenter12:39

Mm-hmm.

Michael Rosen12:40

That's a very kind of peremptory way of behaving. I said, could I like to change course? From what to word?

Michael Rosen12:47

I'd say from medicine to English. Can you write a sentence?

Michael Rosen12:52

And I said yes, and then he turned to my father and said, What do you think of this?

Michael Rosen12:55

And um my dad said, Well and he prepared this huge speech, you know, a la London University and he said, Well, I think mostly that it's quite a good good convince your father, convince anyone, haven't got any money, fifty pounds will they do by and it was out. The whole thing took about thirty seconds.

Presenter13:10

Brilliant. But you were in, and it was a fit. I mean, you should have been doing English, that was right, wasn't it? You ended up in your third year.

Presenter13:16

Having this play put on at the Royal Court. It's amazing. Your name up in lights, huh?

Michael Rosen13:21

Yes, it was. Yes. I'd I'd written a play called Backbone about sort of about the m rela marriage between my brother and his w who was to be his w his wife, but it was also based on a relationship that I was going through. I kind of mixed it all up.

Presenter13:35

So you were plundering your own life from the beginning.

Michael Rosen13:37

Yeah.

Michael Rosen13:38

Yes, yes, shamelessly plundering.

Presenter13:40

Your life becomes your art.

Michael Rosen13:42

Yeah.

Presenter13:42

But it was your mother in the end who got you published, wasn't it?

Michael Rosen13:45

Yeah.

Presenter13:45

Yeah.

Michael Rosen13:46

Yeah, she had um she had become a broadcaster. Uh my mum in the uh late sixties, early seventies was working in schools radio.

Michael Rosen13:54

With a wonderful producer called Joan Griffiths, and she would be when I'd come home from university, she would be sitting there with a pile of poems on a desk and going.

Michael Rosen14:04

I can't find a way to get from scissors to um to toenails. I just need some sort of link. You know, she have a poem about scissors and a poem about toenails, something like that. And so I would dash up stairs and write a poem about scissors cutting toenails, you see, and I'd come down and go, Um would that be any use to you, mum?

Michael Rosen14:23

And after some trying she put one of these poems in one of her broadcasts, you see, Shameless Nepotism. There it was. And the producer, Joan Griffiths, she said, Has this Michael of yours has he written any others? So really it did come via my mum, yes.

Presenter14:39

And that ended up being your first book in the end.

Michael Rosen14:41

Well, those poems collected together went into the first book, Mind Your Own Business.

Presenter14:45

And somebody married you with Quentin Blake, which must have helped.

Michael Rosen14:48

It was wonderful, yes. That was the uh that was at Andre Deutsch, the publisher's, yes.

Presenter14:52

And you've been together on and off ever since.

Michael Rosen14:54

Yes.

Michael Rosen14:56

Record number four. Record number four. Well, I think I'll need to remember the sixties on this island, won't I?

Michael Rosen15:03

Well, I don't know. It felt that the the shackles were falling off, all that sort of drabness that I remember from Pinna and those front rooms without the lights on. Suddenly the lights did come on.

Michael Rosen15:14

In our lives, and to remember that, I think the best person to remember it with would be Aretha Franklin and my favourite track, Spanish Harlem.

Speaker 215:27

In his soul, it's not higher than any loses control. I wanna head his heart, yeah.

Speaker 215:39

Big Maroon

Speaker 215:41

And watch her as she grows.

Speaker 215:45

In his God.

Presenter15:50

Aretha Franklin and Spanish Harlan.

Presenter15:53

So you got in, Michael, on the highly prized BBC Graduate Trainee scheme, and then three years later, after having done the rounds a bit, you were out, you know, on your neck, in the street, Portland Place. What happened? Did they tell you it was because of your parents' links with the Communist Party?

Michael Rosen16:08

Oh, no, not at all, not at all. No, I thought maybe I hadn't been very good at getting up in the morning when we were filming something called Sam on Boff's Island for Schools T V. Um I thought maybe that's why, or something like that. And then I was invited in to see HST, Head of Staff Training, Owen Reed, and he invited me in and he said, We've been very, very glad to have you on board, Mike.

Michael Rosen16:32

But we think it would be better if he went freelance.

Michael Rosen16:35

And I thought brilliant, you know. I did that thing it's in Yiddish it's called kfelling, swelling with pride. I thought I kvelled, I thought, I am going to be a freelancer. And you know, it took me the time it takes to get from the Langham to Oxford Circus tube station, which is about two hundred yards, to realise that I had actually been fired.

Michael Rosen16:55

I think it took me that long to realize.

Presenter16:57

Twitcher didn't know why.

Michael Rosen16:58

No idea. Until I think some

Michael Rosen17:03

Oh, twelve, thirteen years later, I got a knock on the door from what they call an investigative journalist. And he knocked on the door and said, Have you any idea why you were sacked? And I said, Well, I think it was because I couldn't get up in the morning. And he said, No, you never thought it was because of your politics. And I said, No, no, I don't go into that conspiratorial stuff. I don't buy that. And then the following Sunday, out came the great story that the BBC had these little Christmas trees on people's files if they were suspect, and that there was an officer from MI5 sitting in room 104. His name was Brigadier Ronnie Stoneham.

Presenter17:43

And he put the finger on you.

Michael Rosen17:44

Well, it seems like it, yes. In fact, I I wrote about it. I read the poem about it at a meeting on one occasion, at a poetry reading.

Michael Rosen17:54

And a guy came up to me afterwards and said, You didn't mention the Christmas trees, old chap.

Michael Rosen17:59

And I said, no, no. And he said, by the way, it's not Stoneham, it's Stonham. He was my boss.

Presenter18:04

Good heavens.

Presenter18:06

Good heavens, it all comes back around, doesn't it?

Michael Rosen18:08

Does if you if you write about these things, yes.

Presenter18:10

Things, yeah.

Presenter18:12

Number five.

Michael Rosen18:13

Well number five, this is John Dochty and he's a fiddler from Donegal. He must have been born in the 1890s. And what I love about Irish fiddling

Michael Rosen18:24

Where it comes from that tradition is that really this is a

Michael Rosen18:27

It's like a testimony to the unnoticed. There's a thing we do about

Michael Rosen18:32

What we call roots music or folk music or whatever is that we forget they just incredible skill.

Michael Rosen18:38

that these guys have and so I think I'll think about that when I listen to Miss Ramsey on on my desert island.

Presenter19:13

as John Docherty and Miss Ramsey.

Presenter19:16

You have quite a few children, Michael, some of your own and some inherited three different relationships along the way. But it's Eddie, your secondborn, that we know most of through the poems, anyway. It's Eddie as a baby misbehaving at the supermarket or, you know, as a toddler taking the handbrake off the car and rolling down the hill at the picnic. And it's Eddie who died seven years ago when he was eighteen. How did it happen?

Michael Rosen19:42

Um he was working as a crewman in the theatre, and would be very tired during the day, and I came back from doing a performance in Bristol.

Michael Rosen19:54

Uh I came home.

Michael Rosen19:57

and he was lying on the sofa, saying he felt a bit fluey.

Michael Rosen20:01

So I gave him paracetamol.

Michael Rosen20:04

And a drink?

Michael Rosen20:06

And so we spent the evening together, and I was watching telly, and I think I went off and wrote an article, and came back, and

Michael Rosen20:13

He said he was very groggy, and he would get up every now and then and have a drink, and sit down again. In the end he took himself off to bed.

Michael Rosen20:22

The very last thing that night I w I went up and I I mopped his forehead and I mopped his hands'cause he did feel very hot. I thought it's funny the paracetamol doesn't seem to be working. I popped another couple of uh paracetamol into his mouth and gave him some water.

Michael Rosen20:40

I had to get up in the morning quite early.

Michael Rosen20:43

And then I went in at about six.

Michael Rosen20:46

And he was dead. He was lying in the bed.

Michael Rosen20:51

I could feel immediately it was cold and stiff, and I

Michael Rosen20:55

Rang

Michael Rosen20:57

nine nine nine and the ambulance guys told me to

Michael Rosen21:00

pull him out of the bed on to the floor and I can remember pulling him out of the bed and he was completely stiff and they came over uh oh, within five, ten minutes, um quickly put their fingers on his neck uh to feel the pulse, said He's dead.

Presenter21:11

Mm.

Michael Rosen21:16

Like that, and that was it.

Presenter21:19

And inevitably as the parent and as the one person who was there, you kind of blame yourself that you didn't spot that there was something worse than flu going on, I suppose.

Michael Rosen21:27

Absolutely. I d I didn't know now.

Michael Rosen21:30

I thought I knew the symptoms for meningitis.

Presenter21:33

So you looked for those?

Michael Rosen21:34

Yes, I did. And at that time I didn't know that meningitis can take another route, and it was the septicemia kind, which is

Michael Rosen21:42

The kind that poisons your blood.

Presenter21:43

So even a doctor mightn't have spotted the symptoms.

Michael Rosen21:47

And sadly, on occasions, they don't. You will see cases like this come where the doctors, either the GP or the hospital, they miss it too. It's a devil.

Presenter21:54

Yeah, but you couldn't write about it for a long time, could you? But you did after a couple of years. I uh I suppose it's therapeutic, is it, to get it all out, give it a shape, put it on the page, have another.

Michael Rosen22:04

That's right. As I say to children, I kind of talk through my pen. That's what I do. So I started talking through my pen.

Michael Rosen22:13

About what had happened, about what I thought about Eddie, and also, in a way.

Michael Rosen22:18

sort of taking my own pulse. How did I feel about this to day?

Michael Rosen22:23

and yesterday and tomorrow and so on.

Presenter22:25

Do you want to read us one? I wonder if you want to I know you believe in commemorating people deal with death in so many different ways, don't they? But but I know that you're a

Michael Rosen22:32

Yeah.

Presenter22:34

A commemorator.

Presenter22:35

This is one from your your your book Carrying the Elephant, which is the elephant a grief, really.

Michael Rosen22:42

Barbara, whose husband died in a car smash, told me I'd have dreams. They'll be beautiful dreams, she said.

Michael Rosen22:50

None came for a year.

Michael Rosen22:52

Then they started coming.

Michael Rosen22:54

He visits.

Michael Rosen22:55

He stands in his grey check over shirt. He knows he's died.

Michael Rosen23:00

Once he said he was sorry that he didn't tell me it was septicemia. I said I was sorry that I didn't know it was septicemia.

Michael Rosen23:10

Sometimes he's at a distance, in the way he was when I would drop him off in Drury Lane in time for the matinee.

Michael Rosen23:16

Sometimes he's been close on the sofa, doing his crazy hugs or lifting me off the ground with all his massive, indestructible might.

Presenter23:27

Thank you.

Presenter23:28

Record number six.

Michael Rosen23:31

One whole side of my life is wrapped up in France. It's it's always very difficult to describe this because you always sound a bit kind of poncy, don't you, as a sort of English person saying, Oh, I love France, I do so love red wine and all that. But when I was uh sixteen, my dad said, Why don't you go and stay with a colony d'Accons, which is really a youth camp? I'm sixteen. The old man sends me off to the Ardèche.

Presenter23:56

They're good for your friend.

Michael Rosen23:57

Exactly. Good for your French boy. You can do French in the sixth form, that sort of thing. So I'm going to go off to the Ardèche, which is like cowboy country, you know. And they would play over and over again somebody called Léo Ferré, who I'd never heard of before. And here he is singing about Paris, but you don't call it Paris, you call it Panamme, which is, as we might call London, the smoke. So here it is: it's a tribute to Paris. Panamme.

Michael Rosen24:23

Banana

Michael Rosen24:26

Ya denord vu.

Speaker 124:27

Colon Blis

Speaker 124:29

C'est dancer capré minui.

Speaker 124:33

Time fauxze competiti paris.

Presenter24:38

Banana

Michael Rosen24:39

Yeah.

Presenter24:41

Comte challenge don't eclaxon.

Presenter24:44

Yeah.

Speaker 224:44

Uh

Presenter24:44

La Pan Cogmilism.

Presenter24:48

Never noir, coming.

Presenter24:53

L'Éufer and Pan Am. Um your publisher calls what you write, uh, Michael Rosen, um I think he calls them prose poems, and uh certainly some of your later ones are are are certainly freer verse than some of your early free verse, which was quite free.

Presenter25:10

What what are you calling? What what is it? What is the form that you use?

Presenter25:14

What'd you say?

Presenter25:18

Is it not poetry is really what I'm getting at? And you know that there are critics who say that.

Michael Rosen25:23

Yes, it's a bit of a problem because when I first started, you see, I thought I was writing like some other people. I thought I was writing a bit like uh DH Lawrence, a bit like an American poet called Carl Sandberg.

Michael Rosen25:37

And I thought that's the way I was writing it. There was a tradition of it. If I had looked a bit further, of course, it's if you think of the Psalms, we never think of these as free verse, do we? But if you think about it, once upon a time that was Hebrew poetry, and then

Michael Rosen25:48

The things that we know, the Lord's my shepherd, I shall not want. It doesn't rhyme, there's no rhythm to it, and then.

Michael Rosen25:53

That's free verse from sixteen.

Presenter25:55

Quite difficult to read though. You're just quite easy to read. It's quite interesting, isn't it? It's not whether it's whether it rolls, it's whether I mean, presumably you're reading out loud all of the time you're writing it because

Michael Rosen25:59

Yeah.

Presenter26:04

Uh

Michael Rosen26:04

Uh

Presenter26:04

Ah. Ye you need to. It needs to be deliverable, doesn't it?

Michael Rosen26:07

In my case it's written with a spoken voice.

Presenter26:11

Yeah.

Michael Rosen26:11

Yes, it doesn't have to be, but in my case

Presenter26:13

Do you despise those people who want to pigeonhole people such as you, and people who say, well, I suppose they're sort of self-appointed guardians, aren't they, of what is poetry and what is not poetry?

Michael Rosen26:25

I can understand why they want to do it, because they feel there must be something special, that poetry is.

Michael Rosen26:32

Elevated language, that's what people want to say. I can understand that they want to say that, but I like the idea of a popular poetry that's built up out of the things you catch in the air. And I don't want to embellish them, I don't want to make them into rhyme, find a rhyme for over, dova, rover. You see, it was.

Presenter26:51

But are they more than jokes?

Michael Rosen26:53

Sometimes they're jokes, and sometimes they're ironic looks, and sometimes they are just as I see them as as paragraphs, little scenes, fragments from a life.

Presenter27:06

Pro seven.

Michael Rosen27:07

I think uh on the island I'll want to remember all the wonderful times I've had in and around schools, but in particular in London schools. And London is such a funny, odd, quirky, diverse place and you go into schools and kids are cheeky to you and you might be cheeky back at them and you you see them banging out rhythms on the desk and coming back at you for what you've written and to sum all that up, I'd like to hear Smiley Culture doing Cockney Translation.

Speaker 127:35

Them run protection rockets and control of CIDA. Se cockney fire shoot at we bust corner. Se copne side till if we just say sticks manner You know them have wedge while we have corn Se Cockney say big best man, we just say gwan Se copni say gross, we say out farmer man When them talk about iron, them really mean bottom manner Ruptine and chopper reach and me say copne called Toma Se Cockney say outbel, we say dirty Babylon They know they come in translation

Presenter28:04

Smiley culture and Cockney translation. So you've had uh three families, Michael. The the oldest is Joe, who's now thirty, I think. How old are the youngest, the third family?

Michael Rosen28:15

We've got two there, we've got Elsie and Emile, and Elsie is five, and Emile is eighteen months.

Presenter28:23

Sweet. So you're are you a different father each time, do you feel? Have you how have you changed as a father?

Michael Rosen28:24

So you'll

Michael Rosen28:30

I'm not very good in the middle of the night.

Michael Rosen28:33

My wife said that the other night when he was shouting'cause he was teething

Michael Rosen28:39

I'm ashamed to say this. I turned over, I rolled away, and put my hands over my ears.

Michael Rosen28:44

That's appalling, isn't it?

Presenter28:46

But what's interesting is that you had this rich childhood, as we've heard, and such a solid and secure one, and by definition, of course, you haven't created that kind of

Presenter28:56

Let's hold together come what may

Presenter28:59

feeling in the families that you've had. Do you regret that, I wonder, that you weren't able to recreate what your mother and father gave you?

Michael Rosen29:06

Yes, there are moments I I kind of think it it was the continuity of it.

Presenter29:10

Come.

Michael Rosen29:11

And it's still going on. My dad's still alive. I mean, my mum died in the seventies, but uh.

Michael Rosen29:16

it's that kind of permanent reference point that you can come back to again and again. You know, I mean, it was my dad's birthday the other week. I'm sitting there with my brother, and of course halfway through he kind of goes, The noise, or something like that. My my dad had these had this way of saying things about you, like he I remember he he always used to say,

Michael Rosen29:34

You come into the country for a bit of peace and quiet, and all you can hear is mad Michael shouting his bloody head off. Well, this

Michael Rosen29:42

That phrase, that sentence, has kind of carried on, you know, it's still being said.

Michael Rosen29:47

Now I I suppose what I m I miss that. I miss the fact that somehow or other I don't have these kind of shared reference points that we can all sit round and say those things in quite that way. Everybody's kind of gone off in different directions. Last record. Last record introduced to me by my wife. And I knew of Taj Mahal. That's not his real name. Blues artist. I'd even seen him perform in the sixties. And he did that thing that some of the African-American blues artists did, or blues musicians. They met up with Africans like Dizzy Gillespie meeting up with Hugh Masakela. And this is Taj Mahal meeting up with Tumani Diabete and an album called Tunkaranke.

Michael Rosen30:28

Umarake

Michael Rosen30:33

Kamalima Labidu Mukele.

Presenter30:55

Taj Mahal and Toumani Diabete and Tunka Ranke.

Presenter30:59

If you could only take one of those eight records, Michael, which one would you choose?

Michael Rosen31:05

I think I'll take Big Bill Brunzy.

Michael Rosen31:10

And that'll remind me of Brise and me.

Michael Rosen31:14

Brian took up the guitar at one point and every now and then I would grab harmonica which I had taken up, little blues harmonica, and I'd say, Bryce, time for a blues up and then my brother would play the guitar and I would play this appalling harmonica over it and believe it or not even try and sing like that. I'm squirming with embarrassment now. So this would be great. You'll remember those lovely times of sitting with my brother and playing black, brown and white.

Presenter31:40

And what about a book? You get the Bible and Shakespeare as you know?

Michael Rosen31:42

Yeah, that'll be good. I shall try and learn whole swathes of Shakespeare.

Michael Rosen31:47

Um I think I'll take the complete poems of Carl Sandberg.

Michael Rosen31:52

A writer of free verse and prose poems and paragraphs and stuff. So, yes, that's what I'll take. And a luxury. Yeah.

Presenter32:01

Uh

Michael Rosen32:01

I think I'll take Eddie's Didgerie Do.

Michael Rosen32:05

In the last months of his life Eddie would sit in the corner trying to play a didgeridoo.

Michael Rosen32:10

So I could sit there for hours going thingy.

Presenter32:17

Michael Rosen, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island desks.

Michael Rosen32:20

Thank you, Sid.

Speaker 232:28

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.