Fiona Sampson is an English poet and writer whose work delves into the intricate connections between language, music, and the human psyche. Her poetry, recognized for its formal precision and deep introspection, frequently explores themes of identity, memory, and collective consciousness. Sampson bridges her profound interest in the philosophy of language with a background in music, evident in the rhythmic structure and sonic quality of her verse. Her influence extends beyond literary circles, advocating for creative writing in healthcare and fostering international literary dialogue.
The exploration of four distinct landscapes across Europe and beyond reveals a deep connection through their limestone geology. Fiona Sampson intertwines personal experiences with a lyrical narrative, offering a perceptive investigation that highlights the unique qualities of each locale while reflecting on the broader themes of nature and human experience.
We think we know the Romantic countryside; it has become the stuff of cliche. Here, renowned biographer and poet Fiona Sampson explores how Romanticism shaped the British countryside and our attitudes to it,via series of ten walks through the British landscape, punctuated by the author's vivid and personal reflections.
How Britain's most famous female poet invented herself and defied her times.
Come Down is a bravura new collection from eminent UK poet, Fiona Sampson. Her publications include twenty-nine volumes of poetry, criticism and philosophy of language. Sampson has been shortlisted twice for both the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Prizes.
Today, poetry and art music occupy similar cultural positions. This is a study of these two formal craft traditions that is concerned with the similarities in their roles, structures, projects and capacities.
Mary Shelley was brought up by her father in a house filled with radical thinkers, poets, philosophers and writers of the day. Aged sixteen, she eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley, embarking on a relationship that was lived on the move across Britain and Europe, as she coped with debt, infidelity and the deaths of three children, before early widowhood changed her life forever. Most astonishingly, it was while she was still a teenager that Mary composed her canonical novel Frankenstein, creating two of our most enduring archetypes today. The life story is well-known. But who was the woman who lived it? She's left plenty of evidence, and in this fascinating dialogue with the past, Fiona Sampson sifts through letters, diaries and records to find the real woman behind the story. She uncovers a complex, generous character - friend, intellectual, lover and mother - trying to fulfil her own passionate commitment to writing at a time when to be a woman writer was an extraordinary and costly anomaly.
Fiona Sampson’s latest collection transforms the sensory world into an astonishingly new and vivid poetry. Here, dream and myth, creatures real and imagined, and the sights and sounds of ‘distance and of home’ all coalesce in a sustained meditation on time and belonging. Combining formal sophistication with metaphysical exploration, this is an incandescent work of renewal, beauty and risk.
Set against a backdrop of music and mystery, the narrative follows a talented violinist who becomes embroiled in a web of intrigue that intertwines her life with a secretive society. As she navigates her passion for music, she uncovers hidden truths about her family's past and the dark forces at play in the world of classical music. Themes of ambition, betrayal, and the quest for identity drive the story, as the protagonist must confront her fears and make choices that will shape her destiny.
Deep in limestone country, at the corner of Wiltshire, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, lies the village of Coleshill. a dreamscape with its roots deep in the local soil. Eliot and Forward Prize shortlisted poet comes a deep, interrogative collection of astonishing clarity and power.
British poetry is enjoying a period of exceptional richness and variety. This is a book of enthusiasms: an intelligent and witty map of contemporary British poetry and a radical, accessible guide to living British poets, grouped for the first time according to the kind of poetry they write.