Off Road to Everywhere

Born out of twenty years of helping young writers find skill and delight in poetry, these poems speak to adults and children alike, opening our eyes to the world around us and inside ourselves. Most of all, they invite the reader to pick up a pen and write themselves.

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Winner of the CLPE Poetry Awards 2011

Philip Gross’s classics of poetry for children, Manifold Manor, The All-Nite Café and Scratch City, set a benchmark in the 1990s for opening doors to rich worlds of language and imagination. Off Road To Everywhere takes the challenge into a new century. These poems grow out of twenty years of creative writing work with young people, inviting readers to click out of passive consumer mode and think like writers themselves.

Sequences like ‘Dreams of an Inland Lighthouse Keeper’ offer games, techniques and exercises to be used in writing groups for many ages. This is multi-layered poetry, playful, thoughtful and technically brilliant – as gripping in performance as it is on the page.

Inviting but completely unpatronising to young readers, welcoming to adults who think that they don’t like poetry, these poems open our eyes to the world and to the riches of language as the birthright of everyone. They speak to all ages, and sit confidently on the bookshelf next to Philip Gross’s prize-winning work for adults.