Sam Hamill (1942–2018)
Author of The Erotic Spirit
About the Author
Sam Hamill was raised on a farm in Utah and endured an early life of violence, drug abuse, and jail time. He was a teenage heroin addict when he discovered poetry. He studied under poet Kenneth Rexroth at the University of California, Santa Barbara. While a student, Hamill won a $500 award for show more producing the best university literary magazine in the country. With that money he co-founded the all-poetry Copper Canyon Press with Bill O'Daly and Tree Swenson. Hamill was editor for the press from 1972 until 2004. Hamill was a poet and translator. His collections of poetry included Destination Zero: Poems 1970-1995, Gratitude, Dumb Luck, Almost Paradise: New and Selected Poems and Translations, Measured by Stone, and Habitation: Collected Poems. His translated works include Narrow Road to the Interior: And Other Writings by Matsuo Basho, The Poetry of Zen, and The Essential Chuang Tzu. He won two Washington Governor's Arts Awards, the Stanley Lindberg Lifetime Achievement Award for Editing, and the Washington Poets Association Lifetime Achievement Award. He died on April 14, 2018 at the age of 74. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Photo by Ian Boyden
Works by Sam Hamill
The Sound of Water: Haiku by Basho, Buson, Issa, and Other Poets (Shambhala Centaur Editions) (1995) — Editor — 120 copies
Only Companion: Japanese Poems of Love and Longing (Shambhala Centaur Editions) (1992) — Translator — 85 copies
The Gift of Tongues: Twenty-five Years of Poetry from Copper Canyon Press (1996) — Editor — 65 copies
Crossing the Yellow River : Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese (New American Translations: 13) (2000) 35 copies
Rattle Poetry for the 21st Century - Tribute to Poets Writing Abroad (Winter 2004, 22) (2005) 3 copies
Ce que l'eau sait 2 copies
Blue dun 2 copies
October frost 1 copy
Dead letter 1 copy
Reading Seferis : a poem 1 copy
Psalm 1 copy
Watching the Waves 1 copy
Associated Works
Democracy in Print: The best of the Progressive Magazine, 1909-2009 (2009) — Contributor — 14 copies
The North Dakota quarterly : vol. 50, no 4, Fall 1982 — Contributor — 1 copy
Poetry East : number twenty & twenty-one fall 1986 : poetics — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Hamill, Sam
- Birthdate
- 1942-05-12
- Date of death
- 2018-04-14
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Occupations
- publisher
poet
translator
editor - Organizations
- Copper Canyon Press (editor)
Poets Against the War - Awards and honors
- Stanley Lindberg Lifetime Achievement Award for Editing
Washington Poets Association Lifetime Achievement Award
Members
Reviews
Only Companion: Japanese Poems of Love and Longing by Sam Hamill
Written by court princesses, exiled officials, Zen priests, and recluses, the 150 poems translated here represent the rich diversity of Japan’s poetic tradition. Varying in tone from the sensuous and erotic to the profoundly spiritual, each poem captures a sense of the poignant beauty and longing known only in the fleeting experience of the moment. The translator has selected these five-line tanka—one of the great traditional verse forms of Japanese literature—from sources ranging from the classical imperial anthologies of the eighth and tenth centuries to works of the early twentieth century.… (more)
This collection was especially depressing because the war isn't over; the poems are still relevant today, ten years after this book was published. However, it does remind the reader of the power of poetry: the lines make you think and feel differently--perhaps more deeply--than prose. Overall, an incredible collection of poets and poems including some of my heroes and some people I've shared the page with in the past.
Eros, playing among the roses,
didn't see the bee.
Stung, he howled,
he screamed to Aphrodite,
"I'm dying! Mother! I'm dying!
I was bitten by
a snake with wings!"
And she kissed him and replied,
"It will pass. It was only a bee,
my darling, but think
how long the suffering
of all those who feel your sting."
The above poem by Anakreon, one of my favorites, is one included in this exceptionally beautiful collection of poems from Ancient Greece. The translator, Sam Hamill, has included poems from Sapphon, Alcaeus, Anakreon, and Paulus Silentiarius. In addition there is a selection of lyrical and love poems from several different sources ranging from Bacchykides and Likymnios to Meleager, Rufinus, and Marcus Argentarius. While the collection is small the poems invite the reader to delight in them again and again.… (more)
didn't see the bee.
Stung, he howled,
he screamed to Aphrodite,
"I'm dying! Mother! I'm dying!
I was bitten by
a snake with wings!"
And she kissed him and replied,
"It will pass. It was only a bee,
my darling, but think
how long the suffering
of all those who feel your sting."
The above poem by Anakreon, one of my favorites, is one included in this exceptionally beautiful collection of poems from Ancient Greece. The translator, Sam Hamill, has included poems from Sapphon, Alcaeus, Anakreon, and Paulus Silentiarius. In addition there is a selection of lyrical and love poems from several different sources ranging from Bacchykides and Likymnios to Meleager, Rufinus, and Marcus Argentarius. While the collection is small the poems invite the reader to delight in them again and again.… (more)
Awards
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Statistics
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- 57
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- Rating
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