A Level English students learn from acclaimed poet Jacob Sam-La Rose
This week, a class of A Level English students were visited by acclaimed poet Jacob Sam-La Rose at the Bletchley campus. Jacob ran a two-hour workshop for the class, who have been studying his poetry collection, Breaking Silence, this term.
During the workshop on Monday 8th December, the students had the opportunity to hear Jacob read his poems, followed by a task in which they analysed and asked questions about the poems, their technical features and the context of poems previously studied in class.
Jacob Sam-La Rose is a poet, editor, educator and artistic director. The poems from his first book-length collection focus on multiple themes, spanning identity, creativity and music. Jacob discussed his background and the real-life events that inspired his poems, including inspiration drawn from music, articles and writers including Alice Walker and Seamus Heaney.
Jacob reflected on his experience running the workshop: “It’s been an absolute joy. I never tire of the fact that I have this opportunity to come into educational institutions to speak about my work and see how people are interpreting the poems and making them their own.
“We got into some of the questions the students had, and the differences in time and cultural experiences. We had a conversation about computers – the old-school tape-driven computers I grew up with versus the computing technology we have today. It’s a beautiful thing to examine experience in that way.”
On what inspires him, Jacob said: “Life inspires me as a poet; I’m inspired by everything I experience, read and hear, and everything that confuses me.”
Rochelle Kirkum, Lecturer for A Level English at MK College, said: “I think the workshop was very insightful. It’s given us another layer of interpretation because in English we encourage multiple understandings as these can strengthen their analysis. Jacob has helped us add more meaning to the poems.
“I think the students were really engaged and definitely benefiting from hearing about the poems from Jacob himself. It’s quite rare that you can ask someone personally what shaped their poem; it’s great that we had a living, breathing poet that can say what shaped those words on the page. It’s important we understand how context shapes meaning in poems.”
To learn more about A Levels at MK College, read more here.