Jacob Sam-La Rose

Jacob Sam-La Rose is a poet, editor and educator. Among other roles, he is the artistic director for the Barbican Young Poets programme, and has served as poet-in-residence for Raffles Institution (Singapore), as a poetry fellow for English Heritage and as a poetry professor at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He has been responsible for the Spoken Word Education Programme, Shake the Dust (a national youth poetry festival) and countless other creative development initiatives for young and emerging poets. He has delivered programmes, performances and commissioned works for Arts Council England, the British Council, the Open Book Festival (South Africa), the Ministry of Education (Malaysia), the London School of Economics and more. His poetry has been translated into Portuguese, Latvian, French and Dutch, and his collection Breaking Silence is required reading for an English Language/Literature A-level syllabus. Author photograph by Amaal Said.