Roger Stevens

About Roger Stevens

It was a long time ago. Roger was working in a primary school in Kent, after several years teaching art in secondary schools, when a visiting poet gave him an idea. Roger had written a children’s novel, The Howen, for Penguin and was working on the follow up. He had always written poetry for adults but strangely he’d never thought of writing poems for children. 

After Brian Moses performed and ran workshops for Roger’s pupils, Roger realised that this was exactly what he would love to do. Not only to write poems for children but also to visit schools helping children write, read, understand but most of all enjoy poetry. 

He began writing and sent a poem to Brian who published it in an anthology. More poems in anthologies followed and after a few years Macmillan published Roger’s first solo collection I Did Not Eat the Goldfish. This was the start of a successful career during which Roger has had more than forty books published over the past 30 odd years. 

As well as performing and running workshops in schools, Roger has played a leading role in the promotion of poetry in education, helping to train teachers and publishing guides to help them deliver poetry in the classroom in a way that engages all pupils, especially those who may be slower to learn. He was also a founding member of the Able Writers programme for pupils who show a particular talent for creative writing. Roger’s award-winning website www.poetryzone.co.uk, which publishes poems by children for children and includes advice for teachers, celebrated its 25th Anniversary in 2023. It continues to be advert-free and popular with children all over the world, several of whom have gone on to become poets themselves thanks to Roger’s support. 

He is a great collaborator and is behind many projects which encourage new and more experienced poets to work together to share ideas, including a series of poetry retreats which have set many poets on the path to success. He is a National Poetry Day Ambassador. 

Roger’s poems can be found in many respected anthologies. His books include solo collections, collaborations with other poets (including Brian Moses) and he has edited many anthologies. 

He wrote the UK’s first verse novel for young readers, The Journal of Danny Chaucer, which he was invited to adapt for radio and which he performed on Radio 4. 

Roger’s books have been nominated and shortlisted for many awards, including the CLiPPA prize; Apes to Zebras – an A to Z of shape poems (Bloomsbury), written with Liz Brownlee and Sue Hardy-Dawson, won the prestigious NSTB award. 

Roger’s poems can be funny, moving, happy and sad. He enjoys writing in all sorts of different styles from haiku to verse novel. The best of his poems can be found in Razzmatazz – The World of Roger Stevens (Otter-Barry) and, of course, here. 

Roger lives in Brighton with his wife and two very naughty dogs called Dolly and Crumble.