The Author
I think we all owe a lot to Michael Rosen for making our childhood reading, and poetry, seem all the more fun than other adults made out. When I was very little, I was fortunate enough to see a talk of his; I didn’t understand a lot of the jokes (think it was actually aimed at adults) but I could feel the energy and fun he exuded in the room and so I laughed along too, thinking he was a very funny man.
‘We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. OH no! We’ve got to go through it!’ from his famous children’s book We’re going on a Bear Hunt lives in my head and is never far from my mind in difficult situations - muddy or not. So when we received the news online, early into lockdown 2020, that this wonderful man was seriously ill with this new virus we all gasped and thought the worse.
The Book
Luckily; this latest collection of poetry and writings about his illness, his time in ICU, and his recovery is testament to his survival and more centrally as it states in the title; it is a thank you to the wonderful love and care he received from the NHS.
I was very excited about this collection and attended an online talk he, and Chris Riddell (the illustrator), did about this book. Michael Rosen is a fellow North Londoner so when I heard he went often to his local bookshop in Muswell Hill to sign new copies of his latest book, I heavily hinted to my mum that this book was just what I needed for my birthday! The illustrations add beautifully to the overall message of the book
The collection is dissected into parts entitled (in order); ‘Feeling Unwell, Going to Hospital, Induced Coma, Recovery: Part One, Rehab, Going Home, Recovery: Part two, These are the Hands’. Each articulate a very different stage of his illness and recovery, the little thoughts he has on the way and the constancy of love he received from friends, family, and the NHS.
My Little Thoughts
Aside from his masterful lines of poetry he choose to include extracts of tweets, family text messages, letters from friends; and perhaps most poignantly the messages from the numerous healthcare workers who were in charge of his care whilst he was unwell. I saw him saying online a while back, that a reviewer criticised this decision, saying that these notes quickly jotted in a notebook by nurses and doctors on shift ‘weren’t poetry’.
Well if you believe that you entirely miss the sentiment in which this book was written. Call the poetry Police if you like but if you still believe all poetry must rhyme or be clever and witty then you deserve to go to poetry prison. As the title states this book represents ‘Many Different Kinds of Love’.
I believe this ‘Love’ is shown in the many ways communication is represented in the book. There is the obvious forms of communication; Rosen describes intermittent phone calls with his wife; text messages to his children; and Nurses saying a kind word. But, as articulated in his poem, he wrote way before this pandemic, ‘These are the Hands’, it is the non-verbal, everyday actions of these wonderful workers and friends that translate ‘Many different kinds of love’ he and we all receive. In the letters left by nurses and healthcare professionals who looked after Rosen whilst he was in a coma, they describe; washing him, shaving him, changing his clothes, combing his hair, and how they sang Happy Birthday on his Birthday. Love doesn’t need to be said.
Certainly in the past year or more, it became even more important that Love was translated into actions rather than just words. We all had to stop and re-think how we interacted with the world and each other. Rosen retrospectively marvels at the love he received from total strangers, recalling how it felt it was like a Mother at the bed of a sick child.
The Unwell
This leads me into the other side of illness that this book articulates. It was very easy to go into this book and join Rosen in celebrating our wonderful NHS and how they care for all of us at the worst moments of our lives. However, particularly in Rosen’s often lucid mind wonderings when he is in hospital the poetry shows the complete vulnerability of the unwell. He articulates in the most simple but delicately crafted lines, the utter helplessness of being well but also the hidden bravery perhaps we sometimes miss in the seriously unwell. Undoubtedly in such a circumstance you have very little choice what happens to you. In such a situation, however, the person must give up their independence into unknown hands, it’s that or limit your own survival as Rosen learns.
A moment where this happens for Rosen is actually on the back cover of the book where it is quoted;
‘A Doctor is standing by my bed
asking me if I would sign a piece of paper
which would allow them to put me to sleep and pump air into my lungs.
‘Will I wake up?’
‘There is a 50:50 chance’.’
‘If I say no?’ I say.’
‘Zero.’
And I Sign.
It might seem like a no brainer, and whilst I have luckily never been as ill as that, I have felt vulnerable, helpless and pretty useless whilst being ill. It takes bravery to trust strangers however well trained or well-meaning they are, we all value our independence; even more so when it's gone.
Anyway, if you’re a fan of poetry or want to try it out, this is a beautiful book to begin with. It is sensitive to the losses so many faced in the pandemic, whether it was the loss of a loved one, loss of independence or loss of human connection, these simple but powerful lines capture the rollercoaster Covid-19 filled year 2020 was.
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