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Common Prayer
Inspired by the violent landscape of 20th-century central Europe, this collection of formal sonnets, homages, narrative fiction, and lyrical reflections focuses predominantly on the relationship of human illness and bereavement to depleted ecology. Employing linguistic risk, transgressive range, and intellectual demand as well as visceral emotional content, these poems elicit both liturgical and sensual truths.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2007
1 person is currently reading
16 people want to read
About the author
Fiona Sampson
68 books57 followersFiona Ruth Sampson, MBE is an English poet and writer. She is published in thirty-seven languages and has received a number of national and international awards for her writing.
Sampson was educated at the Royal Academy of Music, and following a brief career as a concert violinist, studied at Oxford University, where she won the Newdigate Prize. She gained a PhD in the philosophy of language from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. She advises internationally on creative writing in healthcare, a field whose development she pioneered in a number of projects and publications. As a young poet she was the founder-director of Poetryfest – the Aberystwyth International Poetry Festival and the founding editor of Orient Express, a journal of contemporary writing from Europe. She has received a number of international writers' fellowships: I.A. Literary Association, Skojcan, Slovenia, 2015, Greek Writers’ Union Writers’ and Translators’ House, Paros, 2011, Estonian Writers’ Union House, Kasmu, 2009, Heinrich Boll House, Achill Island, 2005, Fundacion Valparaiso, Spain, 2002, Hawthornden Castle, 2001, Fondacion da Casa de Mateus, Portugal, 2001. She held an Arts and Humanities Research Council Fellowship at Oxford Brookes University 2002-5, a CAPITAL Fellowship in Creativity at the University of Warwick 2007-8 and a Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, Institute of Musical Research & Institute of English Studies: 2012-15.
From 2005-12, Sampson was the editor of Poetry Review, the oldest and most widely read poetry journal in the UK. She was the first woman editor of the journal since Muriel Spark (1947–49). In January 2013 she founded Poem, a quarterly international review, published by the University of Roehampton, where Sampson is Professor of Poetry and the Director of Roehampton Poetry Centre.
She lives in Herefordshire.
Sampson was educated at the Royal Academy of Music, and following a brief career as a concert violinist, studied at Oxford University, where she won the Newdigate Prize. She gained a PhD in the philosophy of language from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. She advises internationally on creative writing in healthcare, a field whose development she pioneered in a number of projects and publications. As a young poet she was the founder-director of Poetryfest – the Aberystwyth International Poetry Festival and the founding editor of Orient Express, a journal of contemporary writing from Europe. She has received a number of international writers' fellowships: I.A. Literary Association, Skojcan, Slovenia, 2015, Greek Writers’ Union Writers’ and Translators’ House, Paros, 2011, Estonian Writers’ Union House, Kasmu, 2009, Heinrich Boll House, Achill Island, 2005, Fundacion Valparaiso, Spain, 2002, Hawthornden Castle, 2001, Fondacion da Casa de Mateus, Portugal, 2001. She held an Arts and Humanities Research Council Fellowship at Oxford Brookes University 2002-5, a CAPITAL Fellowship in Creativity at the University of Warwick 2007-8 and a Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, Institute of Musical Research & Institute of English Studies: 2012-15.
From 2005-12, Sampson was the editor of Poetry Review, the oldest and most widely read poetry journal in the UK. She was the first woman editor of the journal since Muriel Spark (1947–49). In January 2013 she founded Poem, a quarterly international review, published by the University of Roehampton, where Sampson is Professor of Poetry and the Director of Roehampton Poetry Centre.
She lives in Herefordshire.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 15, 2013
May be three and half. But then there are some poems that deserve five stars. And then on few occasions there are wonderful expressions for the ordinary events/things and such expressions also contain loaded meanings in the context of the particular poems.
Some Expressions:
1. Expression for the wave:
"Water
always pressing towards water
as if it could dissolve the skin of the known world."
2.
"Who knows -
history's like that. Takes with one hand,
gives with the other."
3. "Dark, voiceless music."
And then there are wonderful poems that deal with man's struggle for belief in God and they are well expressed.
Some Expressions:
1. Expression for the wave:
"Water
always pressing towards water
as if it could dissolve the skin of the known world."
2.
"Who knows -
history's like that. Takes with one hand,
gives with the other."
3. "Dark, voiceless music."
And then there are wonderful poems that deal with man's struggle for belief in God and they are well expressed.
May 10, 2025
Very intelligent poetry. I’ve never seen the word palimpsest before! I think I would need a second read to really get through but an impressive volume.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews