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==Poet==
==Poet==
Hunt has been a central figure in New Zealand literature since the publication of his first mature 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' ".<ref name="Robinson&Wattie"/>
Hunt has been a central figure in New Zealand literature since the publication of his first mature 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' ".<ref name="Robinson&Wattie"/> Critics have noted Hunt's "unabashed romanticism". As Hunt wrote, ''Romantics, so they say,/ don't ever die!'' (second "Song"). Hunt has been called "a kind of [[Jack Kerouac]]", "laconic" and "somewhat gauche" - whose poems or "roadsongs" are direct and simple, "surprised by their own powerful emotion".<ref name="Robinson&Wattie"/> Hunt was a prolific writer in the 1970s-1990s period and he has had something of a [[renaissance]] since 2007. In April 2009, New Zealand musician [[David Kilgour (musician)|David Kilgour]], formally of cult band [[The Clean]], released an album on which poems by Hunt were reinvented as song lyrics.<ref>http://www.davidkilgour.com/falling.htm</ref>

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 (musician)|David Kilgour]], formally of cult band [[The Clean]], released an album on which poems by Hunt were reinvented as song lyrics.<ref>http://www.davidkilgour.com/falling.htm</ref>


Hunt's friends and contemporaries included a number of well known New Zealand poets such as [[Denis Glover]], [[Alistair Campbell (poet)|Alistair Campbell]], and [[James K. Baxter]]. Baxter's poem ''Letter to Sam Hunt'' provided advice to the young Hunt.<ref>http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/huntsam.html</ref>
Hunt's friends and contemporaries included a number of well known New Zealand poets such as [[Denis Glover]], [[Alistair Campbell (poet)|Alistair Campbell]], and [[James K. Baxter]]. Baxter's poem ''Letter to Sam Hunt'' provided advice to the young Hunt.<ref>http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/huntsam.html</ref>

Revision as of 22:51, 14 January 2012

For other people named Sam or Samuel Hunt, see Samuel Hunt (disambiguation).

Sam Hunt, (Samuel Percival Maitland) 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 grew up at Castor Bay on the North Shore of Auckland. His commitment to writing poetry probably came from his mother. Hunt's father, a barrister, was sixty when Hunt was born (his mother was 30). Yet Hunt loved his unconventional parents and " ... early poems featuring his father remain amongst his best".[3] Hunt has an older brother, Jonathan.

St Peter's College and the Christian Brothers

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 authoritarianism and 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] Hunt has said that if Mr Arvidson " ... had not come to the school, I would not have lasted [at St Peter's] as long as I did, and I'd just turned sixteen when I left. He introduced me to poets like Gordon Challis, who I've gone on loving ever since".[6] 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.[7] 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 mature 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' ".[3] Critics have noted Hunt's "unabashed romanticism". As Hunt wrote, Romantics, so they say,/ don't ever die! (second "Song"). Hunt has been called "a kind of Jack Kerouac", "laconic" and "somewhat gauche" - whose poems or "roadsongs" are direct and simple, "surprised by their own powerful emotion".[3] Hunt was a prolific writer in the 1970s-1990s period and he has had something of a renaissance since 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]

Kiwi icon

Hunt's distinctive appearance - tall and rangy, usually wearing drainpipe trousers ('Foxton straights' he calls them) and open-chested shirts, with long hair curling wildly above a weathered face - is complemented by the familiar gravelly drawl that has made him one of New Zealand's most recognisable figures.[3] Almost as well-known was his long-time travelling companion, a black-and-white dog named Minstrel. "A bard in the truest sense of the itinerant minstrel, Hunt's turangawaewae is the public bar. Touring the pubs with bands of musos and poets, he is himself one of the national icons".[11] Hunt has actually become a familiar figure in New Zealand figurative art, notably in many paintings by Robin White, such as in Sam Hunt at the Portobello Pub, painted in 1978.[11]

Popularity

Hunt's book sales far exceed most New Zealand poets.[3] He 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.[12]

Published works

For a comprehensive list of works, check the catalog at the National Library of New Zealand[13]

  • 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)
  • Chords & Other Poems (2011)

References

  1. ^ HUNT, Sam
  2. ^ Making Tracks - Hazard Online
  3. ^ a b c d e f Roger Robinson and Nelson Wattie, "Sam Hunt", The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, Oxford University Press, Auckland, 1998, pp. 249 and 250.
  4. ^ Rick Maxwell, St Peter's College, Auckland, Simerlocy press, Auckland, 2008, pp. 20, 36 and 37 (Note 183).
  5. ^ St Peter's College Magazines, 1963 and 1964
  6. ^ Sam Hunt, Backroads, Charting a Poet's Life, Craig Potton Publishing, Nelson, 2009, p. 24.
  7. ^ Sam Hunt: Selected Poems, Penguin Books, Auckland, 1987, p. 63.
  8. ^ http://www.davidkilgour.com/falling.htm
  9. ^ http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/huntsam.html
  10. ^ "Unassuming poet finds he's in good company". The New Zealand Herald. NZPA. 7 June 2010. Retrieved 7 November 2011.
  11. ^ a b Oliver Stead, Art Icons of New Zealand:Lines in the Sand, David Bateman, 2008, p. 71.
  12. ^ http://www.dpmc.govt.nz/honours/lists/list.asp?id=48 2010 Queen's Birthday Honours List
  13. ^ [1]

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