Brian Moses

His first career choice was to be a musician, but when he realised he was never going to become a rock star (which was, he says, some time after everyone else had come to the same conclusion) he put his guitar away and the songs turned into poems.

A former teacher, Brian founded Able Writers’ Workshops and with other writers and poets works in schools to encourage those children who are sometimes overlooked in a system where exams and adherence to the National Curriculum can mean their creative talent is neglected. He is also a talented performer and accompanies his poems on a range of, often quite bizarre, percussion instruments. His love of music is also reflected in the rhythms of his poems when performed. You can hear Brian reading for the Children’s Poetry Archive. (See the link below.)

Brian’s poems are quirky, sometimes sad and often quite surreal. And great fun! They owe a lot to the Beats and to the emergence of poets such as Roger McGough and Brian Patten in the 1960s. He writes about what children know – he remembers what it was like to be a child. He also has a firm hand on free verse and the ability to use exactly the right image in the right place at the right time.

He has made several appearances at the Edinburgh Festival, has been writer in residence at Castle Cornet on Guernsey, on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Light Railway and at RAF schools in Cyprus. Recently he has visited several International schools in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, France and Ireland.

In 2005, Brian was nominated for both the CLPE Award and the Spoken Word Award. In September 2006 he was invited to Iceland to take part in “Kids in the Marsh” – a festival of children’s poetry and song.

Brian lives in the small Sussex village of Crowhurst with his wife, two daughters and a collection of chickens. Bibliography

Trouble at the Dinosaur Café, Puffin Books, London, 2006
Taking Out the Tigers, Macmillan Children’s Books, London, 2005

Anthologies

Monster Poems, Macmillan Children’s Books, London, 2005
Aliens Stole My Underpants, Macmillan Children’s Books, London, 2005
The Secret Lives of Teachers, Macmillan Children’s Books, London, 2005
Blood and Roses; Poems About British History, Hodder Children's Books, London, 2005
Poems of Childhood, Macmillan Children’s Books, London, 2005
Are We Nearly There Yet? by Brian Moses, Stephen Tompkinson, and Emma Chambers (Audio CD) Macmillan Audio Books, London, 2004
The Works 2: Poems on Every Subject and for Every Occasion by Brian Moses and Pie Corbett, Macmillan Children’s Books, London, 2002

Future Publications include:

Behind the Staff Room Door (The Best of Brian’s Poetry), Macmillan Children’s Books, London, 2007
The Truth About Teachers (A large-format poetry book with Paul Cookson, David Harmer, and Roger Stevens), 2007
The Sssnake Hotel (a lift-the-flap picture book for younger children), Macmillan Children’s Books, London, 2007

Links

In English

The Poetry Zone
Brian Moses on the Poetry Zone

The Children’s Poetry Archive
Brian Moses on the Children’s Poetry Archive