Sam Sampson was born in Auckland, Aotearoa-New Zealand and raised in South Titirangi, next to Little Muddy Creek (Waikumete) where he still lives.

His first book of poems Everything Talks, was published in 2008 by Auckland University Press (NZ) and Shearsman Books (UK) and won the 2009 NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry.

In June 2014 Halcyon Ghosts was published through Auckland University Press with NZ poet Ian Wedde commenting:

Halcyon Ghosts reads as an investigation of the Romantic scored serially. A collection of delicately composed cartography / scenography / choreography, and yet such rich language. Words in flight.

While the American poet Michael Palmer commented:

How sing the forms the eye apprehends in the green world? Sam Sampson here – while reimagining the venerable tradition of the 'shaped poem' – asks us to rethink our assumptions about the limits of poetic speech and presentational immediacy. The result is a reverential and deeply lyrical voyage of discovery, a celebration of things seen and sounded anew.'

The NZ critic Paula Green reviewed Halcyon Ghosts calling it both 'breathless and breathtaking'.

In 2022 UN COUP DE DÉS JAMAIS N'ABOLIRA LE HASARD ((( SUN-O ))) was completed, just in time for the 125th anniversary of the publication of the original poem by Stéphane Mallarmé. In April it shipped to the UK to join works by other poets and artists in a series of ongoing exhibitions at selected galleries and libraries. All of the works of homage to ‘Un Coup de Dés’ will be donated to the Special Collections at the Bodleian to make them available to scholars and artists interested in Mallarmé, as well as what is arguably a sub-genre of book art.

To view pages from the book: UN COUP DE DÉS JAMAIS N'ABOLIRA LE HASARD ((( SUN-O ))).

His most recently published work (Summer 2025) was included in VOLT 29.

To get in touch with Sam Sampson:

Email: sam@samsampson.co.nz

or visit: Instagram