“When you break a poem down in order to perform it, you have to engage closely with many aspects of what it's about, how it works, how it's constructed and so on. If you write a poem alongside it, to complement it, you start to feel poetry's method, poetry's way of looking at things.”

English children's author, poet and academic

Michael Rosen is an English children's author, poet, presenter, political columnist, broadcaster, activist, and academic. He is professor of children's literature in the Department of Educational Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has written more than 200 books for children and adults. Among his best-known titles are We're Going on a Bear Hunt and Sad Book. He served as Children's Laureate from 2007 to 2009 and won the 2023 PEN Pinter Prize from English PEN for a body of work praised as fearless.