Rosen, who also presents the BBC Radio 4 programme, ‘Word of Mouth’, which explores the English language, talks excitedly of his plans for his two years as Children’s Laureate: Flood, Alison (31 March 2020). "Michael Rosen 'very poorly but stable' after night in intensive care". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 31 March 2020 . Retrieved 31 March 2020. Rosen says both books are a direct result of his brush with death. “After having Covid, I was in a state of reverie for at least three months. Forty days of having drugs put in you, plus Covid, will do that. In that reverie my mind was darting to and fro, thinking about Eddie, my mum, my dad and whether I would ever work again. In my mind, it sort of brought it all together.” A fascinating family memoir and a very personal story about terrible loss, The Missing describes the impact of the Holocaust on one family, and in doing so, shows children that what happened to the Rosens–the missing great uncles and aunts, but also the displacement of the rest of the family, and their grief for the missing–also happened to millions of others. This is as much a book about finding the words to express our troubles as it is about the author’s life and Rosen, who is professor of children’s literature at Goldsmiths, University of London, is a generous teacher. We feel his doubts, his uncertainty and his curiosity. “I’m right at the very edge of what I understand,” he says, but in writing, in sharing, in striving for meaning, he offers readers a lifeline, and shows them they are not going through it alone.

Michael Rosen has got through lots of crises in his life including the death of his parents, his son, jobs and a close shave with death with Covid. He also had a long-term illness for over a decade without realising it and Jewish relatives who he discovered died in Nazi concentration camps. Their memories he unearthed from the fragments available to him to make sure they were not forgotten. Because I’m not him!” Rosen says. “So you try not to be burdened?” I ask. “Or not to be a burden?” “Both, actually,” he says. “I guess I have sad thoughts every day. But I try not to be overcome by them.” We will all go through hardships in our lives, whether it’s a job loss, money worries, a bereavement, a relationship ending, an illness etc. And this book instils such hope that I think it would do the world some good if everyone had a copy.The poem’s narrator is undoubtedly a loving father, yet he is also one who has uncertainties and makes mistakes (‘I take him into our bed […] What a stupid thing to do’), and displays a mixture of love and irritation: ‘Those toes are going / wiggle wiggly wiggly […] So by the time I get up […] I’m very tired and very cross.’ An old friend asked him if he sees the world differently now. “The answer is yes, but I’m not quite sure how.” The most profound change is an increased sense of vulnerability; as he describes it in one of the collection’s earliest poems, he has gone from being “a certain person” to an awareness that “Now everything’s not certain”. In August 2015, Rosen endorsed Jeremy Corbyn's leadership campaign in the Labour Party election. [32] He contributed to Poets for Corbyn, an anthology of poems from 20 writers. [33] [34] In the same month, he was one of many Jewish public figures who signed an open letter criticising The Jewish Chronicle 's reporting of Corbyn's association with alleged antisemites. [35] In 2016, along with others, he toured the UK to support Corbyn's bid to become Prime Minister. [36] [37]

a b Armitstead, Claire (8 September 2017). "Michael Rosen: 'Realising that poetry was performance was my eureka moment' ". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 5 March 2021 . Retrieved 11 May 2019.I wonder aloud why he has never previously told the story of Eddie’s death. Given what I’ve been through, I’ve done OK. If you were to mark it in terms of difficulty, I’m about a five

Rosen is chosen for laureate role". BBC News. BBC News Online. 11 June 2007. Archived from the original on 17 August 2007 . Retrieved 11 June 2007.

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From here to paternity: Tales from the labour ward". The Independent. London. 21 June 2006 . Retrieved 19 July 2010. [ dead link] Though Rosen has written about Eddie’s death previously (specifically in Michael Rosen’s Sad Book, a children’s title that begins with the words “This is me being sad,” beneath a Quentin Blake illustration of Rosen grinning), he has only done so sparingly and never in great detail. In Getting Better, he lays out the detail. One night Eddie complained of a headache. The next morning Rosen discovered his body cold and unmoving. When a 999 operator advised Rosen to remove Eddie from bed and place him on the floor in the recovery position – Rosen by this point knowing but not knowing that his son was already gone – Eddie fell stiffly and out of his mouth came “a bit of pale red fluid,” he writes. Paramedics confirmed Eddie’s death at the scene. Rosen watched them slide his son downstairs in a body bag. In the book, he recalls the terrible sound of the bag being zipped closed. ‘I guess I have sad thoughts every day. But I try not to be overcome by them’: Michael Rosen. Photograph: Pål Hansen/The Observer

Politics [ edit ] Jeremy Corbyn [ edit ] Rosen at an anti-racism rally in London's Trafalgar Square in 2016 Bearn, Emily (16 November 2008), "A novel approach to the classroom", The Sunday Times, archived from the original on 20 May 2013 , retrieved 25 November 2008 Rosen has been married three times and has five children and two step-children. His second son Eddie (1980–1999) died at the age of 18 from meningococcal septicaemia, and his death was the inspiration for Rosen's 2004 work Sad Book. Rosen lives in North London with his third wife, Emma-Louise Williams, and their two children. It has now been 23 years since Eddie’s death. For the most part, Rosen has succeeded in escaping incapacitation. “I’ve tried not to be burdened by it,” he says. “I talk in the book about ‘carrying the elephant’.” Rosen hands me a postcard replica of an engraving of a man struggling to carry an elephant up a hill. “I bought that in Paris,” he goes on, “and it’s a great reminder. You know, I’m not carrying an elephant. At the time I thought I was. Eddie’s dead and I’m carrying all this grief and it’s bigger than me – it’s as big as an elephant. But not any more. Even with this Covid thing, or with any of that other stuff, I’m still not carrying an elephant. So this picture, it inspires me.” A Materialist and Intertextual Examination of the Process of Writing a Work of Children's Literature" (PDF). University of North London. October 1997. Archived (PDF) from the original on 6 September 2021.Perring, Christian (15 May 2005). "Michael Rosen's Sad Book". Metapsychology. 9 (19). Archived from the original on 13 March 2007 . Retrieved 30 June 2007. Michael Rosen at the 2017 Cheltenham Literature Festival signing his book, The Disappearance of Émile Zola. In 1969, Rosen graduated from Wadham College, Oxford, and became a graduate trainee at the BBC. Among the work that he did while there in the 1970s was presenting a series on BBC Schools television called Walrus (write and learn, read, understand, speak). He was also scriptwriter on the children's reading series Sam on Boffs' Island, but Rosen found working for the corporation frustrating: "Their view of 'educational' was narrow. The machine had decided this was the direction to take. Your own creativity was down the spout." In 2021, Rosen received the annual J.M. Barrie Lifetime Achievement Award from the charity Action for Children's Arts, "in recognition of his tremendous work championing the arts for children as well as his achievements as a performer and author." Word of Mouth". BBC Radio 4. Archived from the original on 23 December 2008 . Retrieved 26 November 2008.