Sam Hunt (poet): Difference between revisions
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==Background== |
==Background== |
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Hunt was educated at [[St Peter's College, Auckland]] which he attended from 1958 to 1963.<ref>Rick Maxwell, ''St Peter's College, Auckland'', Simerlocy press, Auckland, 2008, pp. 20, 36 and 37 (Note 183).</ref> At St Peter's, Hunt's individualism came into conflict with the [[Congregation of Christian Brothers in New Zealand|Christian Brother's]] puritanism. (He has said that he was strapped at the age of 14 for reciting a poem by [[James K. Baxter]] which had sexual imagery, in the classroom.) Life was not made easier by a bad stutter, and poems working through the tensions and fantasies of adolescence became a form of release. Some of his earliest poems were published in the St Peter's College annual magazines.<ref>''St Peter's College Magazines, 1963 and 1964''</ref> Despite problems at school, Hunt, who was a good sprinter and diver, did not leave until asked to. He benefited, in his final year, from having poet [[Ken Arvidson]] as his English master, and he obtained University Entrance.<ref |
Hunt's commitment to writing poetry probably came from his mother. His father a [[barrister]], was sixty when Hunt was boen (his mother was 300. Yey hunt loved his unconventional parents and "early poems featuring his father remain amongst his best".<ref name="Robinson&Wattie">Roger Robinson and Nelson Wattie, "Sam Hunt", ''The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature'', Oxford University Press, Auckland, 1998, pp. 249 and 250.</ref> Hunt was educated at [[St Peter's College, Auckland]] which he attended from 1958 to 1963.<ref>Rick Maxwell, ''St Peter's College, Auckland'', Simerlocy press, Auckland, 2008, pp. 20, 36 and 37 (Note 183).</ref> At St Peter's, Hunt's individualism came into conflict with the [[Congregation of Christian Brothers in New Zealand|Christian Brother's]] puritanism. (He has said that he was strapped at the age of 14 for reciting a poem by [[James K. Baxter]] which had sexual imagery, in the classroom.) Life was not made easier by a bad stutter, and poems working through the tensions and fantasies of adolescence became a form of release. Some of his earliest poems were published in the St Peter's College annual magazines.<ref>''St Peter's College Magazines, 1963 and 1964''</ref> Despite problems at school, Hunt, who was a good sprinter and diver, did not leave until asked to. He benefited, in his final year, from having poet [[Ken Arvidson]] as his English master, and he obtained University Entrance".<ref name="Robinson&Wattie"/> Ken Arvidson endowed a poetry prize at St Peter's and this was awarded to Sam Hunt in 1963. One of Hunt's most reproduced poems is ''Brother Lynch'', a poem about a St Peter's College teacher, Brother J B Lynch, who was sympathetic to the young Hunt.<ref>''Sam Hunt: Selected Poems'', Penguin Books, Auckland, 1987, p. 63.</ref> An annual literature competition at [[St Peter's College, Auckland|St Peter's College]], is named after Sam Hunt, and he has acted as its judge. |
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==Poet== |
==Poet== |
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Revision as of 23:38, 22 July 2010
Samuel "Sam" Percival Maitland Hunt, CNZM, QSM (born in Castor Bay Auckland on 4 July 1946) is a New Zealand performance poet.[1] He has been referred to as New Zealand's best-known poet.[2]
Background
Hunt's commitment to writing poetry probably came from his mother. His father a barrister, was sixty when Hunt was boen (his mother was 300. Yey hunt loved his unconventional parents and "early poems featuring his father remain amongst his best".[3] Hunt was educated at St Peter's College, Auckland which he attended from 1958 to 1963.[4] At St Peter's, Hunt's individualism came into conflict with the Christian Brother's puritanism. (He has said that he was strapped at the age of 14 for reciting a poem by James K. Baxter which had sexual imagery, in the classroom.) Life was not made easier by a bad stutter, and poems working through the tensions and fantasies of adolescence became a form of release. Some of his earliest poems were published in the St Peter's College annual magazines.[5] Despite problems at school, Hunt, who was a good sprinter and diver, did not leave until asked to. He benefited, in his final year, from having poet Ken Arvidson as his English master, and he obtained University Entrance".[3] Ken Arvidson endowed a poetry prize at St Peter's and this was awarded to Sam Hunt in 1963. One of Hunt's most reproduced poems is Brother Lynch, a poem about a St Peter's College teacher, Brother J B Lynch, who was sympathetic to the young Hunt.[6] An annual literature competition at St Peter's College, is named after Sam Hunt, and he has acted as its judge.
Poet
Hunt has been a central figure in New Zealand literature since the publication of his first work From Bottle Creek: Selected Poems 1967–69 in 1969, published when the poet was aged just 23. A number of Hunt's works share common themes and characters, such as the poems Porirua Friday Night and Girl with Black Eye in Grocer's Shop, both of which feature the same female character. "Everything Hunt writes is geared for personal performance: his lyrics are deliberately uncomplicated and colloquial; their traditional forms and regular rhythms allow 'the stories and myths [to be] fleshed and invested with energy and power' ".[7]
Hunt was a prolific writer in the 1970s-1990s period and he has had something of a renaissance from 2007. In April 2009, New Zealand musician David Kilgour, formally of cult band The Clean, released an album on which poems by Hunt were reinvented as song lyrics.[8]
Hunt's friends and contemporaries included a number of well known New Zealand poets such as Denis Glover, Alistair Campbell, and James K. Baxter. Baxter's poem Letter to Sam Hunt provided advice to the young Hunt.[9]
He now lives in Kaipara in Northland[10]
Honours
Hunt was awarded an Queen's Service Medal in 1986 for his contribution to New Zealand poetry. On 7 June 2010, Hunt was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.[11]
Published works
- From Bottle Creek: Selected Poems 1967–69 (1969)
- Bracken Country (1971)
- From Bottle Creek (1972)
- Roadsong Paekakariki (1973)
- South Into Winter: Poems and Roadsongs (1973)
- Time To Ride (1975)
- Drunkard’s Garden (1977)
- Poems for the Eighties : New Poems (1979)
- Collected Poems 1963–1980 (1980)
- Running Scared (1982)
- Approaches To Paremata (1985)
- Selected Poems (1987)
- Making Tracks(1991)
- Naming the Gods (1992)
- Down the Backbone (1995)
- Roaring Forties (1997)
- Doubtless: new and selected poems (2008)
- Backroads, Charting a Poet's Life (2009)
References
- ^ HUNT, Sam
- ^ Making Tracks - Hazard Online
- ^ a b Roger Robinson and Nelson Wattie, "Sam Hunt", The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, Oxford University Press, Auckland, 1998, pp. 249 and 250.
- ^ Rick Maxwell, St Peter's College, Auckland, Simerlocy press, Auckland, 2008, pp. 20, 36 and 37 (Note 183).
- ^ St Peter's College Magazines, 1963 and 1964
- ^ Sam Hunt: Selected Poems, Penguin Books, Auckland, 1987, p. 63.
- ^ Roger Robinson and Nelson Wattie, p. 250.
- ^ http://www.davidkilgour.com/falling.htm
- ^ http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/huntsam.html
- ^ http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10650201
- ^ http://www.dpmc.govt.nz/honours/lists/list.asp?id=48 2010 Queen's Birthday Honours List