Fiona Sampson
Encyclopedia
Life
Born in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Sampson grew up in the West Country
West Country
The West Country is an informal term for the area of south western England roughly corresponding to the modern South West England government region. It is often defined to encompass the historic counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset and the City of Bristol, while the counties of...
, on the west coast of Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
and in Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
. She was educated at the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
, and following a brief career as a concert violinist, studied at Oxford University, where she won the Newdigate Prize
Newdigate prize
Sir Roger Newdigate's Prize is awarded to students of the University of Oxford for Best Composition in English verse by an undergraduate who has been admitted to Oxford within the previous four years. It was founded by Sir Roger Newdigate, Bt in the 18th century...
. She gained a PhD in the philosophy of language from Radboud University Nijmegen
Radboud University Nijmegen
Radboud University Nijmegen is a public university with a strong focus on research in Nijmegen, the Netherlands...
in the Netherlands and currently lives in London.
Work
Sampson has published fifteen books, including works of poetry, volumes on the philosophy of language and on the writing process. Her poetry has been published and broadcast in more than thirty languages and her many translations include the work of Jaan KaplinskiJaan Kaplinski
Jaan Kaplinski is an Estonian poet, philosopher, and culture critic. Kaplinski is known for his independent mind, focus on global issues and support for left-wing/liberal thinking...
. She contributes to The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, The Irish Times
The Irish Times
The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Kevin O'Sullivan who succeeded Geraldine Kennedy in 2011; the deputy editor is Paul O'Neill. The Irish Times is considered to be Ireland's newspaper of record, and is published every day except Sundays...
The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, the Times Literary Supplement, the "Sunday Times", and is the editor of Poetry Review, the oldest and most widely-read poetry journal in the UK. She is the first woman editor of the journal since Muriel Spark
Muriel Spark
Dame Muriel Spark, DBE was an award-winning Scottish novelist. In 2008 The Times newspaper named Spark in its list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945".-Early life:...
(1947-9). She advises internationally on creative writing in healthcare. She was the founder-director of Poetryfest - the Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth is a historic market town, administrative centre and holiday resort within Ceredigion, Wales. Often colloquially known as Aber, it is located at the confluence of the rivers Ystwyth and Rheidol....
International Poetry Festival and the founding editor of Orient Express, a journal of contemporary writing from Europe. Sampson's work is held online, in text and audio, at The Poetry Archive.
Her fifth full poetry collection was Rough Music (Carcanet, 2010), following A Century of Poetry Review (Carcanet, 2009), a PBS Special Commendation and Poetry Writing: The expert guide (Robert Hale, 2009). Her volume of Newcastle/Bloodaxe
Bloodaxe Books
Bloodaxe Books is a British publishing house specialising in poetry.-History:It was founded in 1978 in Newcastle upon Tyne by Neil Astley, who is still editor and managing director. Joined in 1982 by chairman Simon Thirsk, Astley was later awarded an honorary D.Litt by Newcastle University in 1995...
Poetry Lectures, Music Lessons was published in June 2011 and her volume Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
in the Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music...
Poet to Poet series, in September 2011 (it was the PBS on-line Book Club Choice).
Awards and Honours
The poem "Trumpeldor Beach" was shortlisted for the 2006 Forward prizeForward Poetry Prize
The Forward Poetry Prizes were created in 1991. The aim of the prizes is to extend the audience for contemporary poetry. Until the T.S. Eliot Prize remuneration was increased to £15,000 plus £1000 to each of nine runners-up, the Forward was the United Kingdom's most valuable annual poetry...
and her volume Common Prayer was shortlisted for the 2007 T. S. Eliot Prize
T. S. Eliot Prize
The T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is awarded by the Poetry Book Society to "the best collection of new verse in English first published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland" in any particular year. The Prize was inaugurated in 1993 in celebration of the Poetry Book Society's 40th birthday and in...
. She has won the Cholmondeley Award
Cholmondeley Award
The Cholmondeley Award is an annual award for poetry given by the Society of Authors in the United Kingdom. Awards honour distinguished poets, from a fund endowed by the late Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley in 1966...
(2009), the 2003 Zlaten Prsten for international writing (Macedonian Foundation for Culture and Sciences), a Hawthornden Fellowship, the Newdigate Prize
Newdigate prize
Sir Roger Newdigate's Prize is awarded to students of the University of Oxford for Best Composition in English verse by an undergraduate who has been admitted to Oxford within the previous four years. It was founded by Sir Roger Newdigate, Bt in the 18th century...
; and awards from the Arts Councils of England
Arts Council England
Arts Council England was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three separate bodies for England, Scotland and Wales. It is a non-departmental public body of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport...
and Wales
Arts Council of Wales
The Arts Council of Wales is a Welsh Government sponsored body, responsible for funding and developing the arts in Wales.Established by Royal Charter in 1946, as the Welsh Arts Council , when it merged with the three Welsh regional arts associations...
and the Society of Authors
Society of Authors
The Society of Authors is a trade union for professional writers that was founded in 1884 to protect the rights of writers and fight to retain those rights .It has counted amongst its members and presidents numerous notable writers and poets including Tennyson The Society of Authors (UK) is a...
. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
Royal Society of Literature
The Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...
. and was elected to the Council in 2011. Rough Music
Rough music
Rough music, also known as ran-tan or ran-tanning, is an English folk custom, a practice in which a humiliating and loud public punishment is inflicted upon one or more people who have violated the standards of the rest of the community...
was shortlisted for both the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Prize 2010 for best collection.
Selected bibliography
- The Self on the Page: Theory and Practice of Creative Writing in Personal Development (with Celia Hunt) Jessica Kingsley (1998)
- The Healing Word (1998)
- Creative Writing In Health And Social Care (editor) Jessica Kingsley, (2004)
- A Fine Line: New Poetry from East and Central Europe (with Jean Boase-Beier and Alexandra Buchler, Arc, 2004)
- Evening Brings Everything Back (translations of Jaan Kaplinski, Bloodaxe, 2004)
- Folding the Real (Seren, 2001, published in Romanian by Editura Paralela 45, 2004)
- Writing: Self and Reflexivity co-authored with Celia Hunt (2005)
- The Distance Between Us (Seren, 2006)
- On Listening (Salt, 2007)
- Day co-authored with Amir OrAmir OrAmir Or , is an Israeli editor, translator and award-winning poet whose works have been published in more than 30 languages.He is the author of seven volumes of poetry as of late 2006, and his latest book in Hebrew, The Song of Tahira is a fictional epic in metered prose.Individual poems by Amir...
(2007) - Common Prayer (2007), short-listed for the 2007 T. S. Eliot Prize
- A Century of Poetry Review (Carcanet, 2009)
- Poetry Writing: the Expert Guide (Robert Hale, 2009)
- Rough Music (Carcanet Press, 2010)