Welcome. I’m Jacob Sam-La Rose, and here’s what you need to know: I’m a published poet; I devise and facilitate projects for schools and other institutions, emerging poets, teachers, literature professionals and other creatives; I’m a geek for web technology and productivity; and I’m pretty handy with a camera. I exist in a few different places online – this particular site serves as my lifestream, an overview of what I’ve been doing on the interwebs. The content you see here is aggregated from:
“Resolve to do lots of writing along the way. Much of it will be routine note-taking, but you should also write reflectively, to understand: make outlines; explain why you disagree with a source; draw diagrams to connect disparate facts; summarize sources, positions, and schools; record even random thoughts. Many researchers find it useful to keep a journal for hunches, new ideas, random thoughts, problems, and so on. You might not include much of this writing-to-discover-and-understand in your final draft. But when you write as you go, every day you encourage your own best critical thinking, understand your sources better, and, when the time comes, draft more productively.” - The Craft of Research, 3rd Edition via Andrea Mignolo
Can’t. Get. This. Song. Out. Of. My. Head. Lianne La Havas— Forget. One eye on the past and one eye on the future with the video; brings to mind old Soul II Soul, Terrance Trent Darby and other UK soul promos in styling, colour palette and temperament. Go hard, Lianne. Looking forward to more many more good things from you.
On these kinds of days, it’s difficult to write. So much doing, not enough reflecting. Is there any rail equivalent for air miles? This week alone I’ve spent something like 30 hours in transit on cross country trains between London, Norwich, Dorset, Manchester and Leeds. And workshops: off the train, into a cab, to a venue, to work. This is not a complaint. It’s good to be (the right kind) of busy, and the opportunity I have to engage and share skills with a representative selection of teaching poets (beyond academia) is an enlivening one, one I’m sure I’m not making as much of as I could or perhaps should. I should be gathering thoughts and perspectives on the work we do, who we are, why we do it. What else? If there was one question I could ask them, what would it be? (Note to self: crowd source suggestions).
This travel is just one part of the work I’m doing, specifically for the national youth poetry slam event (Shake the Dust) I’m artistic director for. Consider a mini “state of the nation” round-up: I’m putting together a list of 300 recommended texts for a new poetry collection for Lewisham Libraries and planning an associated workshop project in three London schools to encourage young writers to respond to work within that new collection; I’m teaching and planning further developments for the Barbican Poets (showcase at the Barbican, March 21st); I’m planning a series of poetry events at the newly opened Deptford Lounge, including the dream of a residency there engaging with the local community and architecture; I’m reading through a shortlist for a new literary award, and doing my best to work through my manuscripts-to-edit pile; I’m supporting the development of national poetry competition related to… well, I probably shouldn’t say right now, just in case; I’m working on a body of new poetry for a computer gaming event in Margate; I’m staying true to my drive to offer more tech workshops for writers and creatives with an all-day session in Leeds on the 11th of February; I’m running a six week online poetry workshop for the Poetry School (joy!); and I’m sure there are other things I’m forgetting.
I’m also: trying to avoid falling back into bad habits around email (flag for later attention, where later never comes); lamenting the lack of use my Bronica medium format camera has seen over the past few weeks, but learning to love Instagram (@jacobsamlarose); tweeting and posting to Tumblr (http://jslr.tumblr.com / http://beforeitdisappears.tumblr.com) regularly; resigned to the fact that I can no longer get away with the three or four hours of sleep I used to survive on (I’m currently good on an average of six or seven); and keenly aware that my main site (http://jacobsamlarose.com) needs a reboot, moreso since I didn’t properly finish it the last time round…
And with that, the train’s pulling in at Leeds. Time to go workshop. On these kinds of days, it’s difficult to write, but you do what you can. Hasta la vista…
En route to catch up with my Corfe Hills residency, Poole. Tough week for travel: Norwich, Poole, Leeds and Manchester all within a five day stretch. All for the love of people and poetry… (Taken with instagram)
Had the opportunity to work with Frank on a PAL project: If Not You Who Else. It was a blessing, really, to share the space with so many accomplished and open-hearted people, and it’s the kind of space I wish I could inhabit much more of the time. Spring cleaning, I came across this in a pile of notes, and wanted to give the thought a life beyond my archived paper…
What does poetry mean to you? Poetry Loves Company event, 01/12 (by Danielle Shaw)
I’d started into building a habit/tradition of social events for poets and writers, particularly around Christmas, for a few years up until 2010. Christmas is an interesting time for “freelance creatives”. Depending on the strength of our networks and collaborations, maybe we’re invited to a larger company’s Christmas party, but there’s little that we do for ourselves as a community. With that in mind, I started organising simple Christmas dinners at a friendly Indian restaurant off Oxford Street. We had a good run, then came 2010 (tough year for me for personal reasons) and I had to let a few things go. Rather than restarting the same tradition in 2011, I decided to do something a little different. Christmas is always a busy time, even if we’re not celebrating as a community, so why not celebrate the beginning of new year, rather than the end of an old? 2012 marked the first in what I hope will be a long run of such celebrations, attended by a number of poets and emerging writers I’ve worked with, from flipped eye, Barbican Poets, the London Teenage Poetry SLAM, Malika’s Kitchen, the Roundhouse, the Vineyard and beyond.
With so many poets in the room, it felt criminal to waste the opportunity to make something. Cue filmmaker Danielle Shaw, a Canon EOS 500D, and a few willing guinea pigs with opinions on poetry.
Thanks to Woolfson & Tay (the bookshop, café and gallery space that hosted the event) and everyone who attended, with special thanks to Indigo Williams, Dorothy Fryd, Miriam Nash, Inua Ellams, Nii Ayikwei Parkes and Katie Hale.
Next Poetry Loves Company event? Currently looking at June. Watch this space.
“A few months ago, the term cassette tape was taken out of the Oxford English Dictionary.(!!!) It may seem ironic, then, that the cassette has experienced a quiet comeback over the last few years, as independent labels issuing tape-only releases have begun popping up around the world. I can’t even tell you how many fond memories I have of the days when cassette tapes ruled my music life. Do you remember the days being angry at a radio announcers when they’d start talking before the song was over and screwed up your recording of a song? I do!” — Swiss Miss
My mind dropped out of the paragraph somewhere around the cassette being removed from the OED. WTH?
