Poetry for a Change

Joseph Coelho, poet and playwright, is a leading figure in performance poetry. His plays have received special note from The Verity Bargate Award and The Bruntwood Playwriting Competition. Joseph has been a guest poet on Radio 4’s Front Row and performed poems for Channel 4 and CBeebies Radio. His debut poetry collection Werewolf Club Rules won the CLPE CLiPPA Poetry Award 2015. Joseph lives in Folkestone, Kent.

Chrissie Gittins was born in Lancashire and lives in south London. She worked as an artist and teacher before becoming a full-time writer. She has been shortlisted twice for the CLPE Poetry Award, her poems have been animated for CBeebies and included in many anthologies. She visits schools, libraries and book festivals across the UK. Chrissie won the Belmont Poetry Prize for children’s poems in 2002, and her first three children’s poetry collections were all Poetry Book Society Choices. Her book Stars in Jars was a Scottish Poetry Library recommendation for 2014.

Matt Goodfellow trained as a primary school teacher and still works part-time in schools in addition to his highly popular, high-energy performances and workshops. He is particularly concerned to write verse for children in a way which effortlessly combines learning, confidence and entertainment for young readers. He lives in Manchester.

Brian Moses is one of Britain’s favourite children’s poets and he is featured on the National Poetry Archive. He has written more than 200 books and has sold over 1 million of his poetry books and anthologies. He began writing poems when he realised he would never be a rock star! ‘I put the guitar to one side, but the songs carried on and became poems’. He has now performed his poetry and percussion show in over three thousand schools across the UK and Europe. His poetry books include Behind the Staffroom Door: The Very Best of Brian Moses, A Cat Called Elvis and The Monster Sale. He lives in Burwash, East Sussex. Brian blogs regularly about his work: brian-moses.blogspot.com.

Rachel Rooney worked as a teacher of special needs children while also bringing up her three sons. She is much in demand for school workshops, and for performances of her work at festivals. Her first poetry collection, The Language of Cat, was published in 2011 and won the CLPE prize, followed by My Life as a Goldfish in 2014. A Kid in My Class was shortlisted for the CLiPPA Children's Poetry Prize in 2019. Rachel lives in Brighton.