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Off the Road
An off-the-road biography of New Zealand's best-known poet
Thirty years after Hogg and Hunt collaborated on the now-legendary Angel On the Road with Sam Hunt, the pair have decided to throw caution to the wind and proceed without doctors' certificates, to create an older, possibly wiser twin to that earlier book.
A backstage pass to the private side of one of our most public people, Sam Off the Road is a wild, hilarious, no-holds-barred book about the non-stop life and poems of a man New Zealand thinks it knows, until now.
Part conversation, part story-telling, part poems, it's also a book about friendship, solitude, love, death, self-destruction and endurance. With photographs and poems, some old, some new.
Thirty years after Hogg and Hunt collaborated on the now-legendary Angel On the Road with Sam Hunt, the pair have decided to throw caution to the wind and proceed without doctors' certificates, to create an older, possibly wiser twin to that earlier book.
A backstage pass to the private side of one of our most public people, Sam Off the Road is a wild, hilarious, no-holds-barred book about the non-stop life and poems of a man New Zealand thinks it knows, until now.
Part conversation, part story-telling, part poems, it's also a book about friendship, solitude, love, death, self-destruction and endurance. With photographs and poems, some old, some new.
263 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 2018
3 people are currently reading
9 people want to read
About the author
Sam Hunt
41 books10 followersSam Hunt is a New Zealand poet, especially known for his public performances of poetry, not only his own poems, but also the poems of many other poets.
Hunt was educated at St Peter's College, Auckland which he attended from 1958-63.
Hunt was among the younger New Zealand poets who began to be published in the late 1960s. He was first published in Landfall in 1967.
Hunt's distinctive appearance – tall and thin, usually wearing long, tight, trousers ("Foxton straights" he has called them) with vests and open-chested shirts, with long hair curling wildly above a well-worn face – is complemented by the familiar gravelly drawl, the rhythmic, sometimes staccato and sometimes incantatory quality of his recitation (often tapping his fingers or flicking a hand to emphasise the poetic beat) and the execution of occasional small dance-like steps of concentration. These have all made him one of New Zealand's most recognisable figures. Once, almost as well-known was his long-time travelling companion, the dog Minstrel.
Hunt was awarded a Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago in 1975, and spent 1976 in Dunedin. He was awarded the Queen's Service Medal for community service in the 1985 Queen's Birthday Honours and in the 2010 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to poetry.] In 2012 he received a Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement.
From Wikipedia (abridged)
Hunt was educated at St Peter's College, Auckland which he attended from 1958-63.
Hunt was among the younger New Zealand poets who began to be published in the late 1960s. He was first published in Landfall in 1967.
Hunt's distinctive appearance – tall and thin, usually wearing long, tight, trousers ("Foxton straights" he has called them) with vests and open-chested shirts, with long hair curling wildly above a well-worn face – is complemented by the familiar gravelly drawl, the rhythmic, sometimes staccato and sometimes incantatory quality of his recitation (often tapping his fingers or flicking a hand to emphasise the poetic beat) and the execution of occasional small dance-like steps of concentration. These have all made him one of New Zealand's most recognisable figures. Once, almost as well-known was his long-time travelling companion, the dog Minstrel.
Hunt was awarded a Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago in 1975, and spent 1976 in Dunedin. He was awarded the Queen's Service Medal for community service in the 1985 Queen's Birthday Honours and in the 2010 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to poetry.] In 2012 he received a Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement.
From Wikipedia (abridged)
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 16, 2025
Saw Sam live at least three times. Once at school and once at orientation at Uni. Maybe in first year. But best was at the Back Bencher pub with long past friend Simon Hann. Sam was accompanying the Waratahs. By himself he was good but then he did poems while they played music. Simon turned to me and said “this is amazing”. Which it was. Enjoyed the book far more than I thought. Not every poem but lots of them. He’s old and getting isolated but still interesting. Brought at a Newton second hand book store after C played tennis in town.
April 18, 2019
Incredibly lazy 'update' of Angel Gear that is basically some borrowed-from-there chapters and transcribed Q&A - it's like a podcast-as-book and though it's lazy and not needed there is some charm to it in places. But it's beyond lightweight. It's like a eulogy ahead of time. And a pretty half-arsed one.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews