Michael Rosen – ‘My Brother’

[  # 73 of My Favourite Short Poems  ]

Michael Wayne Rosen (1946 – present)  is an English children’s novelist and poet, the author of 140 books. He served as Children’s Laureate from June 2007 to June 2009.
He has been a TV presenter and a political columnist.  (Adapted from Wikipedia).

 

‘MY BROTHER’   . . .  by Michael Rosen

 

my brother’s on the floor roaring
my brother’s on the floor roaring
why is my brother on the floor roaring?
my brother is on the floor roaring
because he’s supposed to finish his beans
before he has his pudding

but he doesn’t want to finish his beans
before he has his pudding

he says he wants his pudding
NOW

but they won’t let him

So now my brother is on the floor roaring

They’re saying
I’ll give you one more chance to finish those beans
or you don’t go to Tony’s
But he’s not listening
Because he’s on the floor roaring

he’s getting told off
I’m not
I’ve eaten my beans
and do you know what I’m doing now?
I’m eating my pudding
and he’s on the floor roaring

if he wasn’t on the floor roaring
he’d see me eating my pudding
if he looked really close
he might see a little tiny smile
just at the corner of my mouth
but he’s not looking.
he’s on the floor roaring.

the pudding is ok
it’s not wonderful
not wonderful enough
to be sitting on the floor and roaring about –
unless you’re my brother

 

MY BROTHER . . .

This poem of Michael Rosen’s comes from his collection ‘Who Drew on the Baby’s Head?’,  (Publisher: Scholastic  – 1991).  If you can place yourself, perhaps with some difficulty, in the place of a young schoolchild listening with his peers, perhaps in a school assembly, to Michael Rosen reading aloud his story-poem, I think you will see the attraction much of his work has – particularly for younger children.

A video of  Rosen’s own reading of his poem can be viewed on YouTube @:  ‘My Brother’