Pebbles
Michael Rosen
Price: £8.99
Pebbles
Michael Rosen has been, for many years, a prodigious and prolific user of Twitter (now known as Eggs). Unlike the armies of ‘anonymous tweeters / raging in the twilight’, his Tweets are variously fables, squibs, musings, daily observations and lifelong preoccupations – pitted prunes, anteaters, Sisyphus, the sound of rain stopping, garlic pickle, blocked sinks, lost suitcases, legs, hummus and bagels, SATS tests, Runcorn, grief, saggy jumpers, chicken soup, Eurovision, COVID, labyrinthitis, kookaburras, fringe-magnets, cucumber raita, sneezing, shamans, armpit-scratching, Rishi Sunak’s Maths, pest-control, skip-wrestling, the after-life, the icing on the cake, antisemitism, Gaza…
Pebbles is a collection of some of Michael Rosen’s most recent poetry-tweets. Sharp, pithy and eloquent, serious and comical, wise and perplexed, these are the everyday reports of an ‘optimistic nihilist' – someone who doesn’t believe there is any point to existence, but thinks that this is a good reason to make the most of this life while we can.
front cover photograph: Emma-Louise Williams
Sample Poem
Extract
This morning's big challenge: how to eat blackberries without getting pips stuck in my teeth. I think it's important at my stage in life to take on the big stuff, the things that really matter. Just as I was walking to the supermarket this morning thinking that my brain has holes in it through which names escape. I disturbed two birds who complained that I didn't know whether they were sparrows or chaffinches. I said are there any questions? One boy said, I’ve got a question, Michael Rosen. What’s your question? I said, Do you know my Dad’s name? No, I said. It’s Patrick, he said. What greater indictment of the exam system is hearing people who sailed through the exam system saying that they can't think of an alternative to the exam system. I've just been through Runcorn. That's twice in two days. Last time it was in the other direction. Life can be quite exciting at times. I certainly wasn't expecting it to be as exciting as this though. The worse it gets in Gaza, the louder they shout about the antisemitism they’re suffering. The whole point of the rhetoric round immigration is that it has nothing to do with whether people are or are not migrating, and everything to do with encouraging people to be afraid of strangers. The reason why we put children on separate tables according to ability is so that when we test them we find out if we've put them on the right tables. Anonymous tweeters raging in the twilight demanding replies giving out orders flinging insults summoning enemies to an imaginary court calling for sympathy signposting injustice spotting conspiracies claiming expertise staying anonymous. Laura Kuenssberg says the British have a love-hate relationship with the NHS I don't have a love-hate relationship with the NHS I have a love-love relationship with the NHS. If ever I find something wrong with the NHS I don't hate it I care about it like I might care about someone who needs more help. I've picked up an earlier train than the one I was due to catch. It's a train that's delayed by three hours. Everyone on the train is looking very fed up except for me who thinks he's early. Did Einstein have something to say about this? Perhaps not. My granddaughter could live to the 22nd century. Her grandfather (me) used to see Bertrand Russell speak in Trafalgar Square. Bertrand Russell's grandfather met Napoleon.
