Can it be about me?

What a great title for this engaging and inspiring new book of poems for children, by Cheryl Moskowitz illustrated by Ros Asquith. This collection of 48 brand new original poems cover every aspect of the ordinary lives of children. The poems focus on the experiences of primary school kids and there is a special thanks to the children and teachers of Rhodes Avenue Primary School on the dedication page.

But personally I think the poems are suitable for any age!

Here is one of my favourites.

Cheryl Moskowitz writes poetry, plays and fiction for adults and children. She works regularly as a writer in schools. Her poetry for children has featured on BBC TV's 'A Bear Behind' and CBeebies' Poetry Pie Series. Her novel, WYOMING TRAIL is published by Granta and her stories and poems feature in several anthologies.

Cheryl's inspirations for many of these poems come straight from the horse's mouth.
"I asked the local school if I could come in and be a 'fly on the wall' to gather some ideas," she writes in the introduction. But she soon found how difficult it is to be invisible in the classroom. One boy called John was especially curious. "John asked me why I was sitting in the corner making notes. I told him that I was trying to get ideas for some poems. He suggested that the first poem be about him."

Can it be about me?
Are you writing a poem
will it be long
can it be about me?
My name is John.
I don't have any
trousers on.
I just wear shorts
for all the year
but don't write that
because it doesn't rhyme.

This collection brims with humour, inventiveness and the nitty gritty of being a kid in the modern primary school. But its real secret is how universal and timeless many of the experiences and ideas are in these poems.
How many of you recognise this from your schooldays? Today we'd call it 'throwing a sickie.'

The collection deals with all sort of issues, problems and experiences which will be so familiar to primary age kids - such as tests, wet play, the class hamster -

Our Class Hamster
Our class hamster was an onomatopoeia.
We called him
Cuddles.

There are also poetic forms which are a gift to the busy teacher looking for fresh inspirations such as - villanelle, cinquain, sestina - Sestina for primary school kids!!
Definitely!!
There are squabbles and friendships, lunchboxes and clapping games, the class genius - 'Harry is a genius/ he does algebra for fun' -
It was also great to see the good old 'my teacher's a witch' syndrome.
Cheryl writes wonderful little pieces to introduce each poem.
For the 'witch' poem she asks, "What do teachers get up to when we're not watching them? Where do they go at the end of the school day? Why are they so good at spelling? Some of us think we know...."
I taught for twenty-five years and its like an MI5 interrogation some days with kids trying to prise personal stuff from you. Hard to stick to just name, rank and serial number!

And of course, no respectable poetry book for kids is complete without an elephant.

The book is beautifully produced by Circle Time Press with fantastic illustrations by Ros Asquith. Ros is well-known to her Guardian readers for her strip cartoon, Doris, which ran for over ten years and her LINES cartoon. She is also a successful author and illustrator of children's books, notably the Letty Chubb Teenage Worrier series for teenagers published by Piccadilly and Transworld.


This is a book which will be loved by teachers, kids, parents, grandparents and anyone who loves good poetry. I thoroughly recommend it.
You can get your copy from Amazon.
Just click here Can in Be About Me?
Or direct from the press : Circle Time Press

Mightier than the sword.

English PEN, 'mightier than the sword' promotes literature and human rights, defending the rights of persecuted writers around the world, as well as working with different groups in the UK. Recently PEN has focused some of its energies and funds towards working with refugees and asylum seekers, to support their development as writers. As a writer I can think of nothing more frustrating than being forced into exile, losing my language and my ability to communicate through my pen.

PEN has been running a series of creative writing workshops in the past year for refugees and asylum seekers, as well as migrant workers and I have had the privilege of tutoring some of the groups. Writing in English and not one's mother tongue presents linguistic, practical and emotional issues to the writers. Many of the participants in these workshops and those I have been involved with in other settings, are already published and recognised novelists, poets, journalists and playwrights in their own countries, in their mother-tongue. But now they must start all over again, not only mastering a new language, but trying to engage with the tricky UK publishing industry.

Some of the participants have been persecuted as writers in their own countries and have been forced to flee. This is the background to one particular writer, Stephanie Ndoungo. Stephanie is from Cameroon and her mother-tongue is French. As a law student in her home country she took on journalism to fund her studies. Unfortunately she fell foul of the authorities and was forced to flee. She arrived in England in 2003 and sought asylum. Little did she know it would take almsot 7 years and many weary applications to the Home Office before she would be given refugee status and indefinite leave to remain. Stephanie has not seen her family since she fled Cameroon and only has telephone contact.

I met Stephanie on the Write to Life programme at the Medical Foundation. Stephanie was keen to work on poetry with me. Some of Stephanie's poems have been published in the anthologies of the Write to Life programme, such as the example below. Stephanie has also read her work at book festivals around the country.

In January 2010 Stephanie was invited to attend a training day run by English PEN to develop their work with refugee and asylum seekers attending PEN workshops. I was asked to interview Stephanie and open up her story to the group. Stephanie gave us an extraordinary insight into the experiences of being an asylum seeker in England, arriving with no resources, no support and almost no English. Initially Stephanie could not find a Cameroon community and was supported by a Congolese charity. This meant she could at least use her French but she still felt cut off from her own community. It was very difficult to find others from the Cameroon in London.
Stephanie told us how in those early years her life felt like " a waiting game." Waiting for the post, waiting for her court dates, waiting for another interview. She was expected to tell her story over and over again and had to make sure the details did not change. Time passed, another year in her life and another request for new evidence to corroborate her story. But how could she constantly nag friends and family back home for more and more documents?

Stephanie wrote the poem, MY SOIL, ( see above) when she was feeling homesick for her country, her family and her friends. She had brought so little with her.
Except for these dried seed pods.

Writing poetry opened a door for Stephanie and gave her a chance to express herself in a different way. "Writing poetry about yourself," she says, "is more difficult than journalism. You are not always aware before you write, what is actually on your mind. It is difficult to open your life to others in this way." Writing poetry, attending workshops and sharing writing with others for Stephanie has been " part of the healing process."

Being an asylum seeker is to live a life of very restricted choices. You can't work or even volunteer, you can't do an ESOL course to improve your English, you can't shop where you want. For Stephanie and so many others like her, you move from being an independent professional person to complete dependence on the system. "Being an asylum seeker can become an excuse not do things. Its very difficult to meet people and that's where the workshops were so good, " says Stephanie. "I met my first friend from Cameroon in a workshop."

And then the great day comes when finally you are awarded refugee status. There is no warning. A letter suddenly arrives from the Home Office and your life is turned upside down.

We had a special cake on the Write to Life programme to celebrate and there were many mixed feelings around the room, from those who had already achieved the same status and those still waiting, sometimes for years. But once the initial joy subsides, then a whole new set of problems start. "You have no preparation for getting refugee status," Stephanie says."There is no support system, no funding for education. Now you are faced with a whole new set of choices and its scary."

But Stephanie is a very determined person. She has committed herself to the country which took her in and gave a new chance at life, the country which introduced her to 'Only Fools and Horses, 'Yes Minister' and all the different accents and dialects in the English language which she loves. She has enrolled on a Social Work course and is determined to become a professional worker in London, looking forward to the day when she can buy her own flat and make a home for herself and her four year old son, Trevor.

"What I love about poetry," says Stephanie, " is that you can say so much in so few words."
Our experience of listening to Stephanie's story on our training day has given us new insight into life as an asylum seeker and the deep needs of writers trying to express themselves in their adopted language, dislocated from their home and their country.

The work of English PEN in providing this group the opportunity to develop their writing is an essential part of their work in our time.

Saving Anne Frank and Saving Me.

On January 12th 2010, Miep Gies died aged 100. She was the last survivor of those brave people who hid Anne Frank and her group in The Secret Annexe in Amsterdam from the Nazis. Anne wrote, "We are never far from Miep's thoughts." It was Miep who brought Anne the news she craved from the outside world, along with her first high heels.

I feel as though I have lost my big sister. As a Jewish girl growing up in London after the Holocaust, Miep's devotion and bravery was an important light onto the darkness we were all finding out about. " I am not a hero," wrote Miep decades later in her memoirs, but she was to Anne Frank and her group. And she certainly was to me. I feel as though Miep has been there as a guiding light all my life and now that she has gone a special spark has left us. We were blessed she had such a long life.

Miep Gies was a young woman when she helped to hide the group from the Nazis. When they were betrayed by an anonymous tip off her life was spared. It was Miep who found Anne's diary after the Nazis had left and hid it at great personal risk to herself. After the war she was reunited with Otto Frank, the only survivor of the Annexe and she gave him the diary.

The Diary in the Anne Frank Museum

In 1971 I went on a biking holiday in Holland and in Amsterdam I visited the Anne Frank House and Museum. It was amazing to see how true to the diary the Annexe was, especially Anne's narrow room with the film star photos still on the wall. My copy of the diary had fallen apart years before, so I took a new copy with me. As you can see, it was rather battered in my rucksack.

Miep writes in her memoirs, "I stand at the end of the long long line of good Dutch people who did what I did and more - much more- during those dark and terrible times years ago, but always like yesterday in the heart of those of us who bear witness."
A typically modest woman, in fact Miep went to Gestapo headquarters the next day to try and bribe the SS for the freedom of the group. She even stumbled upon some of the SS listening to the BBC and was lucky to escape with her life.

Anne Frank's diary was a beacon to me from childhood. Her honesty gave me permission to take risks very early on in my own writing. I remember gasping when I read, "Today I had my period." From my upbringing, I would never have mentioned such a thing!!I was already recording my thoughts in those wonderful little diaries we all had, with silver keys and have written diaries all my life. But Anne's diary lead the way forward. When Anne fell in love with Peter, I fell in love with him too and I was completely convinced by her picture of the awful dentist. All the more poignant when I saw a meeting only a few years ago between Miep and the dentist's son and learnt from the son what a lovely man he really was.

Anne Frank has inspired young writers all around the world for decades with her elegant prose, her courage and her integrity. And now Miep has gone from us too, our big sister, our protector, our witness. On the anniversary each year of the arrest by the Nazis, Miep sat at home in silence as a memorial to the group from the Annexe. "Not a day goes by that I do not grieve for them, " she wrote. And now we must grieve for Miep.

Writing in the Arctic Circle

If you are a writer who craves silence, there is nothing quite like the silence of the Arctic Circle in winter. Night falls by 3.00pm and then it is pitch dark until ten o'clock the next morning. Morning is no different to dinnertime the day before. It is a strange existence hovering between perma-night and daytime activities and all the time, outside, nothing moves. Even the wind does not sound in the trees because the trees are too heavy with snow to rustle their branches.




Snow covered trees on the fells

I spent a week in northern Finland, a part of Lapland, just before Christmas. We experienced temperatures as low as -30C and could only cope outside in special thermal suits and boots. I needed a balaclava to keep the tip of my nose from freezing over! The only part of our bodies exposed to the air was around the eyes. Remarkably, with the correct equipment, we were outside for hours in both daylight and at night. Our hope was to see something of the Northern Lights. To do that we had to stand out on a frozen lake between from 11.00pm - midnight and stare at the northern sky. We were extremely lucky to see the so called 'quiet' lights, on one night only.

But the Lights were not the main event of this holiday. To me, as a writer, it was the extraordinary silence and beauty of the Arctic and I felt that the extreme cold was part of that beauty. This was a landscape unlike any other I had ever experienced. In my notebook I recalled all the accounts I have read about the great polar explorers."How did they endure the wastes of the Beardmore Glacier? 9,000 feet high and Scott writes, ..huge drifts collected, and the sledges were quickly buried. It was the strongest wind I have known here this summer. Their endurance comes home to me just trying to cope outside even without blizzards and snow drifts.Our week is truly Arctic. Last week there was fog and temperatures hovered around -4C. How disappointing that would have been. Thank Heavens we are having a true Arctic experience. But the cold is really hard work!"




Miriam and cousin Val in full thermal gear.

Standing in the doorway of an igloo. Its only -17C and so I can manage without my balaclava and gloves. Feels almost warm!!

Our guide for the week was an experienced outdoors Lappi guide, Antti, who often quoted his grandfather. Dress up warm, he urged us. My grandfather says, "Warm doesn't break the bones." Antti led us through the forest, showed us all the different animal tracks from reindeer to mice, taught us how to make kindling from logs, made sure we could always tell north - ants build their hills on the south side of trees - moss grows on the south side of the trees, facing the light. And what should we do if we get lost in the forest? "My grandfather says, If you are lost, walk back home."



Pages from my notebook



Our guide, Antti, heating berry juice over the fire in a wooden Teepee. There are reindeer skins on the benches and the berry juice has traditional cloudberries, picked in the Lapland forest. It kept us going all week.

The morning is as dark as night and we had to set out alarms to know which way was up.Daylight is rationed to less than four hours by late December and the sun never appears. But gradually the sky changes from deep midnight black to Stephenson blue by 9.00am.; the colour of the ink in my old school fountain pen. By ten on a clear winter's day the sky is powder blue and the clouds are tinged with rosebud pink. It is a beautiful invigorating light and gives you the energy to set off and explore before the dark sets in by three o'clock. We don't realise how lucky we are in a London winter having 8 hours of daylight and the wonderful sun blazing sometimes in the sky. I didn't realise how much I had missed the actual sight of the sun until I arrived home and saw it blazing over Hampstead Heath.



I always collect found objects from the ground when I travel. In the picture below are two stones from the amethyst mine we visited. They contain glimmers of the purple amethyst and also quartz. There is also a piece of bark and cone from a conifer tree. I found them in a cluster lying on the snow and when I returned nothing had moved, been blown around or covered up. The forest floor remains as motionless as the trees. It is almost eerie.



To live without the sun would be to die, piece by piece, a little every day. But spending time in the great, pure silence of the Arctic was a gift and a privilege and will inspire my writing for a long time to come. Andreas Alarieston, a wonderful artist who recorded the life of the traditional Sami people says, "The reindeer are excellent predictors of the weather." In the paintings below you can see a reindeer with his Sami herder and also a painting of the old post office in the trunk of a tree. The life of the Sami people is changing but we were given a peek into how to survive in the Arctic forest no matter how harsh the weather. My notebook and pen were my survival tools.

The Reindeer Driver Rests and The Post Office at Hankankama. Paintings by A.Alriesto.

Tennis and the marathon author

Tennis Masters, O2 Centre, London, 2009

I have been a fan of tennis and the British tennis players in particular for the last ten years. My son, who is an excellent player, got me interested and now he says I'm a better commentator than the professionals! I have really enjoyed the careers of Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski and also followed less well know British players such as Arvind Parmar. In the last two years I have watched the rise of Andy Murray with great pleasure. But we also have some interesting teenage British girls to look out for, such as Laura Robson. And of course the great players keep on astonishing us, such as the one and only Roger Federer.

Federer ahead of Verdasco and looking cool.

Many Brits grumble that our home grown tennis players are useless because they don't win Grandslams,especially Wimbledon. But our tennis players have shown true grit, determination and perseverance in the face of an onslaught of criticism. What does this have to do with authors who are writing novels?

Taking a break : end of chapter?

As a novelist who has been through the ups and downs in the last three years of trying to get my novels published, I have often been inspired by the tennis players. Young people in their teens and early twenties show an ability and inner strength to bounce back from deep disappointment and failure often not seen in adults twice their age. In the middle of the long hot grandslam season, I have watched Andy Murray crash out in the quarter finals when he was expected to be a finalist, face the cameras for a gut grinding interview within minutes of huge disappointment and humiliation and then come back in the next Slam, more determined than ever.

Slouched on my sofa, with the latest rejection in my hand, or worse, total silence after waiting for weeks or months for an offer from an agent or a publisher, I have found myself taking heart as Rafa, Murray, Federer and Dojkovitch pull themselves up by their Adidas laces, shut their ears and eyes to the taunts and humiliations and get back on the court.

Writng, writing, writing.

The singles tennis court is one of the loneliest places on earth. No team mates to support you, a crowd that may well be baying for your blood and all you have between triumph and failure is the tension on your racket and your determination to persevere and win.

So it is with the writer's attic, wherever that may be. Ultimately all of the support falls away  - Facebook, critique group, trusted writing partner, tutor and the family. In order to progress along the marathon of writing a novel, the end of which may be months or even years away, with no sure promise of reward, the writer has to be able to sit alone and motivate herself to write and write and write. Just as the singles player must stand alone for the long hours of the grandslam match with only his lonely thoughts to sustain him, so must the long distance writer be able to maintain their pace and their wordcount, alone and inside their own head, hour after hour, after week, after month, after year. Little wonder that so many fall by the wayside, unable to sustain the merciless self belief.

Is it all worth it? Ask Rafa and Andy. But I think that the reward for all the hard work is worth the journey and the journey alone is worth the setting out. Happy Writing.

The launch of my first novel, 'Secret Territory,' a novel for adults which took three years to write.

Stories,Snakes and Cimate Change

When Tony Bradman put out a new brief in 2007 for stories about climate change Britain was poised for a storm surge down the North Sea which was threatening floods worse than the great floods half a century ago. On the 31st January 1953 a wall of water, driven by winds over 100mph, swept down the North Sea and over 300 people died. It was the worse peace time disaster in Britain in the twentieth century.
But a new storm was due in November 2007 and on the news the talk was all about global warming and the rise in sea levels. We would have to expect more threats from the sea and much worse flooding than in 1953. Bangladesh which is only one metre above sea level could be submerged in the future.
I decided to write my story about climate change to explore this growing threat.
I felt very strongly it was important that my story helped children to feel empowered. I wanted to show them that they could take action to help prevent climate change, rather than just sit around worrying about it.

In 2009 my story, 'Tommo and the Bike Train' was published in the anthology, 'Under the Weather' stories about climate change, edited by Tony Bradman (Francis Lincoln)

My story about Tommo is highlighted on the back page.

Tommo is a typical 12 year old growing up in Camden, playing football in the streets with his best friend,Deep,whose family come from Bangladesh. Tommo is happy with his life, around the flats and at school. He can't imagine living anywhere else.

Tommo's flats in Camden


Then his parents announce they are moving to the east coast of England. Tommo finds himself at the end of a lane near the sea, with no other kids around and his Dad has to drive him to school everyday. He hates it. Its November and dark by four. The sea sounds like a wild beast outside his window.

In Geography they are doing global warming and floods in Bangladesh. As the world heats up the sea levels will rise and flooding will become worse. Deep tells Tommo that his grandma died in Bangladesh last time there were floods. "Drowned?" says Tommo. "Snake bite," says Deep. When there are floods in Bangldesh dozens of people die from snakebites. Losing their habitats the snakes climb onto roofs with the humans and end up in their bedding with terrible consequences.

I learnt about the danger from snakes when teaching Geography in Camden classrooms. I remember being horrified at this ultimate cruelty after everything that the flood victims have gone through.

Flood victims and the snakes

Tommo worries about saving all the grannies of the world as the sea levels rise and floods get worse. Then one morning in school the Head informs them that a storm surge is predicted down the North Sea and they will all be evacuated to the school buildings. Tommo and his family leave their home during the storm and camp out overnight in the school hall. Then Tommo gets his brilliant idea. He decides he is personally going to stop global warming over his town by persuading the other kids to bike to school, instead of driving. They meet up and form a Bike Train for safety.

Photo by Louis Berk

I love writing to a brief and this is the second short story I have had published in an anthology. The first story, 'Samir Hakkim's Healthy Eating Diary' was published in 'Give me Shelter' stories of child asylum seekers, edited by Tony Bradman, Francis Lincoln, 2007. The anthology was short-listed for the UKLA award.

The character of Samir, an unaccompanied child asylum seeker from Saddam Hussein's Iraq, appeared again in my new novel, HIDDEN, to be published in Oct 2010, Meadowside Books.
Writing short fiction, working to briefs, focuses the mind beautifully and you never know where it may lead.
Perhaps I will go on to write more about Tommo in the future.

Get out of the attic!

I have been writing since I could read but when I was growing up no-one took much notice. My parents encouraged me to do well generally at school but school did not encourage my creativity and I was too shy to admit to anyone that I wrote. I did however write songs and sing them to my friends at uni and did the occasional open mic spot. It wasn't until I had my kids that creative writing classes really started in London. That was when my writing took off. With the support of my tutor and fellow student/writers I began to publish short stories, articles, poems and then to work on my first novel. But the whole process could have been much quicker if there had been the courses we have these days and the critique groups that have sprung up on almost every street corner.

Discussing a new chapter in my critique group.

Writing in a lonely attic ( or in my case, on the kitchen table after the kids had gone to bed) did not really take me towards my goal of becoming a published writer. Nor did it help much to read to family and friends. Ultimately the work needs the rigour of other writers, either in a committed critique group or in a tutor-lead setting.

Running a workshop in North Finchley.

I have lead workshops and been a member of critique groups for over fifteen years. Most people need the cool objective eye of another and the support to move their writing towards their goals. Very few people remain in the attic and achieve that goal.

These days there are so many options to choose from and if all else fails, start your own group. That's what I did on more than one occasion and my novels are proof of how important that has been for me.

This month the writer and blogger, Tracy Ann Baines, has posted two articles I have written on critique groups and tutor lead workshops. Here are the links :

http://talltalesandshortstories.blogspot.com/2009/11/writing-advice-why-should-you-join.html

http://talltalesandshortstories.blogspot.com/2009/11/writing-advice-creative-writing.html

MIRIAM'S TIP
Don't battle on alone wondering if you are going in the right direction. Join a class, find a critique group, meet with other committed writers, go to writers' events, find out about the industry and you'll be plunged into a new and exciting world which will support your journey to becoming a published writer.

HAPPY WRITING!