Interview with Roger Stevens
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Dad, Don’t
Dance Whatever you do, don’t dance, Dad Whatever you do, don’t dance. Don’t wave your arms Like a crazy buffoon Displaying your charms By the light of the moon Trying to romance A lady baboon Whatever you do, don’t dance. When you try to dance Your left leg retreats And your right leg starts to advance Whatever you do, don’t dance, Dad Has a ferret crawled into your pants? Or maybe a hill full of ants Don’t Samba Don’t Rumba You’ll tumble And stumble Whatever you do, Dad, don’t dance. Don’t glide up the aisle with a trolley Or twirl the girl on the till You’ve been banned from dancing in Tesco’s ’Cos your Tango made everyone ill. Whatever you do, don’t dance, Dad Whatever you do, don’t dance. Don’t make that weird face Like you ate a sour plum Don’t waggle your hips And stick out your bum But most of all – PLEASE – Don’t smooch with Mum! Whatever the circumstance. Whatever you do – Dad, don’t dance. © Roger Stevens (From The Monster That Ate the Universe) Reproduced with kind permission from the
author Never Trust a Lemon Never trust
a lemon - it's a melon
in disguise. Never trust
potatoes with shifty
eyes. Never trust
a radish - it repeats
all that it hears. Never trust
an onion. It will all
end in tears. © Roger Stevens (From I Did Not Eat The Goldfish) Reproduced with kind permission from the
author Call Me Lucky My human’s
smashing He’s really
kind And he
spends all his time with me He’s a real
leader I talk to
other dogs They get
left alone Neglected
sometimes But my human He’s with me
all the time He shares
his food And even
sleeps with me We have a
special doorway And I keep
him warm at nights I’m such a
lucky dog © Roger
Stevens Reproduced with kind permission from the
author (From Taking My Human For a
Walk) |
Roger
Stevens is a writer, poet and musician. He visits schools,
libraries,
festivals, museums and poetry groups all over the
Roger's
poems for children appear in more than 200 anthologies.
His
books include two solo collections of poems for children,
I Did Not Eat The Goldfish (Macmillan) and The Monster
That Ate the Universe (Macmillan.); a
verse-novel for teenagers,
The Journal of Danny Chaucer (Poet) (Orion) –
which he
dramatised
and performed as BBC Radio 4’s Afternoon Play;
an
anthology of poems by well-known poets’ pets,
Taking
My Human For a Walk (Macmillan); and a collection
of
poems for grown-ups - Searching
For Blue Sea Glass (Rabbit Press).
Do you know any
really bad jokes?
I know lots of brilliant jokes. Here are two of my favourites. What’s
big, likes peanuts and has a trunk? What does a polite mouse always say? I
can’t remember the answers, but they are very funny. I laughed and laughed when
I first heard them.
How old were you when
you wrote your first poem?
About nine I think. The first one I can remember writing when I was
about eleven was –
Doctor Foster went to
In a big red car
He got hit by a cart
Before he could start
So he didn’t get very far.
Can you stand on one
leg, pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time?
Hang on… wait a moment… I’ll try it and see… … … … … … Whoops! I just
fell over. I can stand on my head and rub Pat’s tummy. Pat is my pet hamster
who loves having her tummy rubbed.
What inspired you to
become a poet?
There were three big influences in my poetic life. The first was reading
the poems of Roger McGough and the other Mersey Poets in the 1960s. They showed
me that poetry didn’t have to be “old-fashioned” like Wordsworth and Byron. The
second was Bob Dylan, who showed me that songs could have poetic lyrics and
didn’t just have to be soppy and one-dimensional. The third was Brian Moses who
came to my school when I was a teacher. He performed his poems and ran some
workshops and I thought – I’d like to do that. He also helped to get me started
as a proper poet by publishing some of my first children’s poems and giving me
lots of encouragement.
Which is your
favourite animal?
Judy Dog is my favourite. When she was younger she wrote lots of poems. You
can read some of them in I Did Not Eat the Goldfish. Now Judy’s very old, blind
and deaf and just sleeps most of the time. I also like Pat, the hamster. If I
could be an animal I’d be an eagle, soaring high over forests and mountains.
And eating small mice and voles.
How many poems have
you written?
About two thousand. Not all them very good. (Just some of them!) I try
and write a poem every day.
Are you frightened of
spiders?
No. But my wife used to be terrified of spiders. She’s okay now though.
I helped cure her by dressing up as a giant spider and encouraging her to let
me sit on her hand. At first she found this very scary. But she gradually
got used to it. Now she’s not at all worried by small spiders, although
big ones
do still make her apprehensive.
We are currently training Pat, the hamster,
to chase spiders out of the house.
Where was your first
poem published?
In an anthology called My First Has Gone Bonkers edited by Brian Moses.
This was it…
When I write haiku
I always seem to have one
Syllable left o…
Ver
Do you only write funny poems?
No. I write lots of serious and sad poems too. You’ll find plenty of
them in my books.
But when I’m performing I tend to read my funny ones. I like poetry to
be fun.
How long does it take
you to write a poem?
How long is a piece of string? (Actually, I know how long a piece of
string is
because I measured it. It’s twenty seven centimeters.)
A poem can arrive in my notebook in seconds and be perfectly formed.
And some poems take months to get right. This poem took me about ten
years before I was really happy with it.
The owl and the pussycat
Went to sea
The owl ate the pussycat.
Oh, deary me.
Do you have an
all-time favourite poem or poet?
I like so many poems I couldn’t choose. But I do have favourite poets.
For children
I like Roger McGough and Shel Silverstein. Grown-up poets I like are
Roger McGough,
Billy Collins and Simon Armitage.
Which are your
favourite biscuits?
I’m not a great big biscuit fan and know very little about types of
biscuit. They all
seem the same to me. But if I had to choose it would be either a Jaffa
Cake or a Garibaldi.
I do like chocolate digestives and I suppose the Queen of the Chocolate
Biscuit would be the
Hob Nob. Yes, I do enjoy a good Hob Nob. I like those those ginger ones,
too. And jammy dodgers,
of course, which, for some reason, remind me of my childhood. Wagon
Wheels are brilliant.
But do they qualify as a biscuit? (They certainly do - yum!)
Do you illustrate
your own work?
Well, I can draw. I went to
art college and I nearly chose “being an artist” for my career.
But I’m not a great illustrator. I could do a reasonable job and I did
illustrate my very first
book of poems, Never Trust a Lemon. But when you compare my work to some
of the brilliant
artists who illustrate children’s books – well – they make my efforts
look a bit puny. The covers
of my three Macmillan books were drawn by Tony Ross who I think is one
of the best children’s
illustrators in the universe.
What is your favourite
shoe?
I like casual shoes but they mustn’t have thick soles. Currently I’m
wearing brown.
I like white shoes but they’re difficult to find nowadays.
Do you ever wear trainers?
No, I don’t like them I’m afraid.
Do you write your
poems with a pen, or do you use a computer?
I write poems in my notebook, which accompanies me everywhere I go. I
use a black fine-liner.
My current pen is a Pilot Hi-techpoint V7 grip (0.7) From my notebook I
transfer my
scribblings and doodles to my computer. Sometimes, if I’m feeling a bit
lazy, I get Pat to do it for me.
What is your
favourite word and why?
It’s tempting to say it’s a long word with a lovely sound to it. But
really, I don’t think I have
a favourite. Words work best when put together with other words don’t
they. It’s teamwork, isn’t it?
If you had not
become a poet, which job do you think you would be doing now?
Something creative. I’d probably be an artist. Before I was a poet I
wanted to be a Rock Star.
In fact I’m working on a CD at the moment of poems and music.
Do you have to be brainy
to be a poet?
No, not at all. You just have to like poetry. And you have to have to
want to communicate
using the form of poetry, as opposed to writing stories for instance. As
it happens I am very brainy.
But it’s not a pre-requisite.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’ve just finished a children’s novel. On-going projects include a book
of poems for younger
children, a collection for teenagers and a graphic novel. I’m also
putting together some poems
for Macmillan Children’s Book for another collection which is being
planned for 2006.
Do you have any
sensible or not-so-sensible advice for young poets?
My advice is probably a bit boring because it’s the same advice that
most poets and writers give.
And that is to read lots of poetry. Lots of different poetry. Both
traditional poems and modern poems.
In fact, read lots of everything. Fiction and non-fiction. Just read,
read, read and read. And write lots, too.
And carry a notebook for jotting down things you see and hear and ideas
that you have.
Do you like boots?
No. Unless it’s very cold and snowing. And
By the way, thank you for inviting me to take part in this interview.
And for having me on your fantastic web site. Pat says thank you, too. (No, thank you, and hello Pat!)
Have you remembered the answers to the jokes yet?
Ah yes, thank you for reminding me. A squirrel in an oak tree. And
cheese and thank you.
