Fiona Sampson

Fiona Ruth Sampson, MBE is a British poet and writer. She is published in thirty-seven languages and has received a number of national and international awards for her writing.

Sampson was educated at the Royal Academy of Music, and following a brief career as a concert violinist, studied at Oxford University, where she won the Newdigate Prize. She gained a PhD in the philosophy of language from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. She advises internationally on creative writing in healthcare, a field whose development she pioneered in a number of projects and publications. As a young poet she was the founder-director of Poetryfest – the Aberystwyth International Poetry Festival and the founding editor of Orient Express, a journal of contemporary writing from Europe. She has received a number of international writers' fellowships: I.A. Literary Association, Skojcan, Slovenia, 2015, Greek Writers’ Union Writers’ and Translators’ House, Paros, 2011, Estonian Writers’ Union House, Kasmu, 2009, Heinrich Boll House, Achill Island, 2005, Fundacion Valparaiso, Spain, 2002, Hawthornden Castle, 2001, Fondacion da Casa de Mateus, Portugal, 2001. She held an Arts and Humanities Research Council Fellowship at Oxford Brookes University 2002-5, a CAPITAL Fellowship in Creativity at the University of Warwick 2007-8 and a Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, Institute of Musical Research & Institute of English Studies: 2012-15.

From 2005-12, Sampson was the editor of Poetry Review, the oldest and most widely read poetry journal in the UK. She was the first woman editor of the journal since Muriel Spark (1947–49). In January 2013 she founded Poem, a quarterly international review, published by the University of Roehampton, where Sampson is Professor of Poetry and the Director of Roehampton Poetry Centre.

She lives in Herefordshire.

Sampson has published twenty-nine books, including collections of poetry, volumes on the philosophy of language and on the writing process. She has written prose on place, literary criticism - she contributes regularly to The Guardian, The Irish Times The Independent, the Times Literary Supplement and the Sunday Times - and biography. She has developed a special interest in the Romantics, editing the Faber Poet to Poet edition of Percy Bysshe Shelley (see below), and being commissioned to write a biography of Mary Shelley "On the White Plain" (Profile, 2018) and a study of the way the Romantics shaped British attitudes to the landscape, "The Everlasting Universe of Things" (Crowood, 2019).

Her work has appeared in more than thirty-five languages and received a number of international awards. Her own translations include the work of Jaan Kaplinski. Sampson's work is held online, in text and audio, at The Poetry Archive.

Her fifth full poetry collection was Rough Music (Carcanet, 2010). It followed 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 Poetry Lectures on the formal links between music and poetry, Music Lessons, was published in 2011, and Percy Bysshe Shelley in the Faber and Faber Poet to Poet series, appeared in the same year (it was the PBS on-line Book Club Choice), reissued in 2012. Beyond the Lyric: a map of contemporary British poetry (Penguin Random House, 2012) is the first study of the poetry mainstream to identify the range of contemporary British poetics without being partisan, and to recognise the contribution of women across that range; not surprisingly, it was treated as controversial. Coleshill (Penguin Random House, 2013), a PBS Recommendation, is a portrait of place and feeling. Her seventh collection is "The Catch" (Penguin Random House, 2016). In 2016 she also published her study of such musical forms as the phrasal breath in verse, "Lyric Cousins: Musical Form in Poetry" (Edinburgh University Press, 2016). It 2017 she publishes a prose essay, "Limestone Country", with Little Toller.

Sampson has been a judge for the Independent International Foreign Fiction Prize, the Irish Times IMPAC Awards, the 2011 Forward Poetry Prizes and the 2012 Griffin Poetry Prize, the 2015 T.S. Eliot Prize, the 2016 Ondaatje Prize. She chaired the 2015 and 2017 Roehampton Prize and the 2015 and 2016 European Lyric Atlas Prize (in Bosnia). From 2013-6 she was a judge for the Society of Authors' Cholmondeley Awards.

AWARDS:

• 2017: MBE
• 2016: Slovo Podgrmec Prize (Bosnia)
• Fellow of the Wordsworth Trust
• Patron of the Anglo-Russian Cultural Association
• 2015: Povelji za međunarodnu saradnju (Bosnia)
• 2013: Poetry Book Society Recommendation,
• Fellow of Royal Society of Arts
• Fellow of the English Association
• 2012: Arts Council of England Grant for the Arts
• 2011: Poetry Book Society On-line Choice
• 2010: T.S. Eliot Prize (short-list),
• Forward Prize for best book (short-list)
• 2009: Cholmondeley Award,
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature,
• Poetry Book Society Special Commendation,
• Fellow of the English Association
• 2007: T.S. Eliot Prize (short-list)
• 2006: Forward Prize for best single poem (short-list),
• Charles Angoff Award, The Literary Review (US)
• 2003: Zlaten Prsten Prize (Macedonia),
• Evelyn Encelot Prize for European Women Poets Maison d Écrivains Paris (short-list)
• 2002: Kathleen Blundell Trust (Society of Authors)
• 2000, 2002, 2004: travel grants from Arts Council of England
• 1999: Arts Council of Wales Writer's Award
• 1998: Oppenheimer-John Downes Award
• 1996: Society of Authors Award
• 1993: Southern Arts Writer's Award
• 1992: Newdigate Prize, University of Oxford

BOOKS (excluding chapbooks):

• On the White Plain: the search for Mary Shelley, Profile Books: Jan 2018
• Limestone Country, Little Toller: May 2017
• The Everlasting Universe of Things: How the Romantics taught us to see the world, Crowood Press: Dec 2018
• Lyric Cousins: Poetry & musical form, Edinburgh University Press: 2016
• The Catch, Penguin Random House: 2016
• Russian edition, as Do Potopa (Before the Flood), Liberated Verse, Kyiv: Jan 2017
• Marevo, Ad Fontes, Kyiv: 2015
• Volta Tractus Arte, Bucharest: 2015
• Revenant, in Chinese, Intellectual Property Publishing House: 2014
• Coleshill, Penguin Random House: 2013
• Bosnian edition, Sveti Hieronymous, Banja Luka: Feb 2016
• Night Fugue: Selected Poems, Sheep Meadow Press (US): 2013
• Beyond the Lyric: a map of contemporary British poetry, Penguin Random House 2012
• Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1st edition: The Romantics Series: Faber: 2011
• 2nd edition: Poet to Poet: Faber: 2012
• Music Lessons: The Newcastle Poetry Lectures, Bloodaxe: 2011
• Selected Poems Jaan Kaplinski (co-translator), Bloodaxe: 2011
• Rough Music, Carcanet: 2010
• Poljupci I Molitva (selected poems), Bronko Miljokovic, Nis: 2010
• Zweimal sieben Gedichte (selected poems), Wieser Verlag, Klagenfurt: 2009
• A Century of Poetry Review (edited and introduced), Carcanet: 2009
• Poetry Writing, Robert Hale: 2009
• Second impression 2011
• Pjesme (selected poems), Croatian PEN, Zagreb: 2008
• Attitudes of Prayer/Attitudes de Prière (trans into French/Japanese/English) with printmaker Tadashi Mamada, Editions Transignum, Paris: 2008
• Common Prayer, Carcanet: 2007
• On Listening: Selected Essays, Salt: 2007
• Day, Amir Or (translator), Dedalus, Dublin: 2006
• Writing: Self and Reflexivity with Celia Hunt, Palgrave Macmillan: 2005
• The Distance Between Us, Seren: 2005
• Bulgarian edition, Balkani, Sofia: 2009
• Hebrew edition, Keshev, Tel Aviv: 2007
• Albanian edition, Poeteka, Tirana: 2006
• Macedonian edition, Magor, Skopje: 2005
• Romanian edition, Editura Parallela 45, Bucharest: 2005
• Creative Writing in Health and Social Care (editor), Jessica Kingsley: 2004
• A Fine Line: New Poetry from Central and Eastern Europe (editor with Jean Boase-Beier & Alexandra Buchler), Arc: 2004
• Evening Brings Everything Back, Jaan Kaplinski (translator), Bloodaxe: 2004
• Patuvachki Knevnik (Travel Diary), Knixevna Akademija, Skopje: 2004
• Folding the Real, Seren: 2001
• Romanian edition Editura Paralela 45, Bucharest: 2004
• The Healing Word, The Poetry Society: 1999
• The Self on the Page (editor with Celia Hunt), Jessica Kingsley: 1998
• Hebrew edition, ACh Publishers, Tel Aviv: 2002

CDs:

• Fiona Sampson, The Poetry Archive: 2007
• Rough Music, with composer Steven Goss: Boosey and Hawkes: 2010

WORDS FOR MUSIC:

• Bee Sama’ with Luminita Spinu: Kings College London Festival: 2015
• Three sonnets with Harrison Birtwistle: Nash Ensemble: Wigmore Hall: fc
• Tree Carols with Sally Beamish: Coull Quartet: City of London Festival: 2014, Edition Peters: 2015
• Rough Music with Steven Goss: Guildford International Festival: 2009, Boosey and Hawkes: 2010