NEED TO KNOW

NEED TO KNOW

INTRODUCING OUR POET-IN-RESIDENCE

Jacob Sam-La Rose on being a poet-in-residence for English Heritage through a pandemic.

Suffice to say, I had high hopes when I was initially offered the role of poet-in-residence for English Heritage. Creative residency roles are often amorphous, subject to negotiation between the host organisation and the artist/poet. While there was pretty much a blank canvas when discussion began, I was almost immediately drawn to the prospect of digging deeply into a selection of English Heritage sites and what those sites might represent, navigating through macro and micro manifestations of national identity, history, belonging, ways of defining a culture, inclusion/exclusion, and what it is that constitutes Englishness. Also, specific characteristics of the sites themselves. I became fascinated, for example, with the archaeological phenomenon of parch marks – the idea that the foundations of a structure, no longer visible above ground, might continue to haunt a landscape. Such rich, raw material to work with. I imagined producing a body of new works, crossing the country, with poetry as a lens, scalpel and shovel. Boots on the ground, fingers in the dirt, and getting to know.

Lockdown You know what happened next. Pandemic. Lockdown. Sites closed and travel restricted. I considered how and whether I might redefine the work in order to pursue it remotely, but things slowed, then came to a halt. By the time we tentatively emerged from the first national lockdown, the vision for the work had changed, responding not only to the practical limitations of the pandemic, but also a foregrounded awareness of racial discrimination and inequality. We assembled a cohort of commissioned poets. We facilitated workshops, and delivered a panel discussion on the importance of poetry in the work of interrogating culture, memory and historical record. We ran a national poetry competition. And we produced events and a digital publication to showcase some of the poetry generated through the programme. On reflection All in all, I believe in the value of the work that was completed. But I still think of what it was that originally drew me to the residency, what I was initially so excited about, how so much of that thinking was wrapped up in the idea of actual, physical presence and experience of the range of properties English Heritage is responsible for. And I hope that, some day in the not-too-distant future, there’ll be an opportunity to explore that original vision further. ■

What it Means to Be by Jacob Sam-La Rose

At Deal, you pace the walls, try on a 16th century mistrust of an open horizon, imagine yourself responsible for the island's southern flank. As you return to now, the waves continue landing one after the next. At Boscobel, you wonder: if you stand amongst the oak and spread your toes and lay down roots, who might challenge your credentials? At Muchelney you walk amongst the ghosts of things, the parch marks in the grass and all their whispers. The River Ouse still speaks directly to the Ure. Go on, you say –you're listening, and they babble something back and forth about the comfort of old beds, and how a river's business lies in moving on. It's not so much what it might be, this Englishness, but where within it you might belong. Even in this fractured time, you try your luck with all the old touchstones: tea, and Dover, chippies, rain and all the seasons, and go on until you arrive on the threshold of your own sovereign enquiry, like Janus, looking forward and behind: all that's gone before – a careworn prayer passed down and shuttled through the fingers, the future like a temple to carry that prayer into.

I was almost immediately drawn to the prospect of digging deeply into a selection of English Heritage sites and what those sites might represent

FIND OUT MORE For more information about Jacob and his other work visit www.jacobsamlarose.com