Sam Sampson
Photo courtesy of the author.
Shearsman Titles
Everything Talks
About the author
Sam Sampson was born in Auckland, New Zealand and grew up in South Titirangi, next to Little Muddy Creek (Paruiti). He is the author of The Deep End (2006), Poems (2006) both with artist Peter Madden, and two chapbooks—Encompassed (2003) and Gauguin's Poiësis (1999). Poems have appeared in journals including: Jacket, Poetry Review,The Iowa Review, and Stand Magazine. In 2007 he was the Curnow Reader at the Going West Books and Writers Festival.
His poems are often grafted from disparate sources: magazines, song lyrics, business manuals, tide charts, overheard conversations . . . anything really that he chances upon. If a locale is present in a number of poems, it is the West Coast of Auckland, especially the Karekare region where his great-uncles were early members of the Karekare Surf Patrol (1935), and his grandfather (a mechanic) repaired the surf club trucks. A number of the so called 'Karekare' poems, have been reprinted in local history books, such as: Bob Harvey's Rolling Thunder: The Spirit of Karekare (2001), and Waitakere Ranges: Ranges of Inspiration: Nature, History, Culture (2006).
Everything Talks is his first full-length collection of poems and is also published in New Zealand by Auckland University Press.
"Sampson's poems are spare and evocative. They hint and gesture towards
meaning rather than laying it out blandly for consumption. There are gaps
and suggestions, which call upon a reader actively to engage in the construction
of meaning." (Peter Simpson)
"For me, that field (the wider poetry field) has offered further delights .
. . the elliptical, Ashbery-esque (yet far terser) work of Sam Sampson." (Emma
Neale, editor: The Best New Zealand Poems, 2004)
For further information please see Sam Sampson’s website.