Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the Aldeburgh First Collection PrizeJacob Sam-La Rose has been described as ''a one-man literary industry''. This was Patrick Neate''s comment on the BBC Poetry Season website: ''Passionate about poetry and its power to change people''s lives, he''s a lesson to us all. He''s also a damn fine writer.''Already well-known on the UK performance circuit, Sam-La Rose has also spent many years working with young people in schools and communities, especially around London. So it will come as a surprise to many that Breaking Silence is his first book-length collection of poetry.It is a collection that sits on the threshold between the personal and the profound, with eyes on race and dual heritage; masculinity and manhood; definitions and senses of self. Above all, it''s a collection that''s invested in the power of the voice, in the work of giving a voice to issues and entities that would otherwise remain silent. It speaks on divides, from the spaces in between.Jacob Sam-La Rose''s work is grounded in a belief that poetry can be a powerful force within a community, and that it''s possible to combine the immediacy of poetry in performance with formal rigour and innovation on the page.