Michael Rosen - Michael Rosens A to Z: the best childrens poetry from Agard to Zephaniah

Were talking, chanting, singing, dancing, shouting and whispering. Open any page and there we are. Were tall, were short, were loud, were quiet. Were women, were men. Were old, were young. Some of us were born near you.

Some of us were born far away. We all do one thing that is the same: we write and perform poems. But our poems are different. Our poems talk about a huge variety of things and we do it in many, many different ways. One thing you can do with this book, is look at all the different things we write about, and all the different ways we write. Another thing you can do with this book is take a poem and see what it sounds like when you say it.

Or you could ask someone else to say it. Then you could have a go at doing it together. To do a poem together, you dont all have to say all the words. While one person is reading the poem, you could just sway to and fro to the rhythm of it. Thats because poems dont just live in our brains. They live in our bodies.

We can move our arms, our legs and our eyes when a poem is happening. We can shut our eyes and imagine the scenes and pictures that the poet is talking about. We can let ourselves wonder why one picture is next to another picture. So many pictures! As you can see, this is an A to Z. And the great thing about an A to Z is that you dont have to start at the beginning and work through to the end if you dont want to. You can start where you want to, go backwards and forwards, round and round, looking for poems you like.

And youll always know where you are! One problem: poets can be awkward people. For some letters we couldnt find a poet and none of the poets would change their names to fit one of the missing letters! So Ive played about on those pages. Maybe you know someone who could be a poet for one of those pages. No better still why dont you make your own A to Z poetry book in your class, or in your school, or online with your friends? One sad bit: my idea for this book came from shows I was doing with many of these poets. This book, I thought, would be for poets who are alive, now, living in Britain, who go out and perform their poems for people like you. You could get to see any of us sometime in your school or local library or in a theatre near you.

And that is what youve got here. But then one of the poets died. Thats Adrian Mitchell. He was someone we admired, loved and was a great friend and teacher to us. As you can imagine, I couldnt bear to take Adrian out of the book. I want him to be as alive as he can be, among the rest of us, remembered by his poems.

And in a way, thats what poems are: little parcels of memory, little packages of what a poet has thought or wondered about or seen and heard. And then by putting them on a page in a book, the poems can sit there for years and years and years, ready for people like you to unpack, take out and enjoy. Yes enjoy! Michael Rosen

Spellbound

Ride with me On this lyrical roller coaster My syllable slices Will feed your hunger As they pop up and down Like a Jamaican toaster Chilling in my simile cocoon Just biding my time The moment is perfect Lets get ready to rhyme Watch your step As my Webb is spun Drop your baggage at check in The lighter you travel The more fun Submerge yourself, in this Lip-hop metaphor Resistance is futile, As I hold the key to the door I leave you tongue-tied like Houdini Youll never escape my barrel of words Your belly expands with laughter As you guzzle on my contagious verbs My acid adjectives Hack deep into your heart Reprogramming your software Be afraid! Be very afraid For this is just the start Youll be my reluctant patient And Ill play the over enthusiastic nurse Drip feeding rhythm and rhyme Through my life saving verse Bringing forth gifts of expression With the knowledge of 3 wise men Verbalizm is the one Like Nio Now five plus four equals ten Verbalizm is the ultimate fighter A lion that cant be tamed A fusion of text and colour This canvas is too big to be framed Therell be no light limericks This operation is far too serious for that Lights, camera, action! Cut! Now thats what I call a Rap! Ad-libbing like a master chef Preparing food, to serenade the nose One whiff of this concoction Leaves you spellbound, by my Moorish prose A DISA

Chick Pea Pie

In the food bacchanal Food just a jam; to the steel pan No humans in sight Strictly vegetables deh pon the street Tonight I see rice a jump high Somersaulting in the wind Kidney peas too fat to jump Her belly just a drag pon the floor Chick peas swimming in an ocean of curry Plantain a sunbathe skin turn black in the sun Green banana, making eyes at cho cho Him say, Tonight I must get that one Aubergine a whine she waist Putting a smile on Dashin and yam face Two bad bwoys Who never skin teeth When them see aubergine Them ball what a girl look sweet Spinach and cousin callaloo A try fe tease black eye peas Spinach flutter her eyelashes Black eye peas body start to swell Callaloo blow peas a kiss I think I am in Love Peas start fe YELL Okra a chat to Big belly breadfruit About the good old years That passed them by Breadfruit rub him charcoal belly And lift him head to the sky Okra skin is no longer furry Her insides are scaly and dry What has become of our youth? How fast life has passed us by Observing the others next to them Aubergine plantain and yam Tears swelled up in their eyes For tonight after the carnival They would all surely die For tomorrow Mama will cook them In her famous Chick Pea Pie. A DISA