The Distance Between Us

by Fiona Sampson

Exploring the limits of meaning and refashioning poetry as that which goes beyond the grammar of the commonplace, this brilliantly devised verse-novel is a passionate exploration of psychology and sexuality set among the tensions of contemporary European identity. This radically ambiguous poetic journey begins with the narrator's love affair in crisis and watches it unfold through loss, risk, existential challenge, and lovemaking that is at once sensual and imagined and questions the boundaries of true intimacy and identity.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published May 20, 2006

About the author

Fiona 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.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I could help it, but I can't - I'm a filthy whore for narrative poetry and it does take me a while to get on board with (or at least unpick) more overtly abstract pieces, such as some of those found in this collection.

But here again, the issue may be with the reader, not the text - and I certainly found the text interesting, if only as potential PhD research material. This is poetry I really would love to see performed, in order to form a fuller opinion - it didn't seem to exist fully for me on the page.

Saying that, there were some beautiful images and turns of phrase. I particularly enjoyed the last poem in the collection, 'The Secret Flowers' (although that title did merit a bit of a undignified giggle) in this regard, especially the 'metal smell of wanting' and this description of nipples;

'Two starfish crawl your chest -
when I bite them, they tighten.

Here you are.

Somewhere a wardrobe door slams.'

This piece really skilfully rendered a sense of eroticized dysphoria, that worked for me in a way some of the earlier poems hadn't. Will definitely re-read at a later date. Probably a great deal I've missed.

[Monique · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant!

[Rosa Jamali · Rating 5 out of 5]

با هم شدن / دو شعر از فیونا سمپسون / ترجمه: رزا جمالی
فیونا سمپسون شاعری بریتانیایی با پس زمینه ی ولزی ست . او در سال 1963 در لندن به دنیا آمده است و زندگی نامه مری شلی را به نگارش درآورده و در زمینه ترجمه شعر نیز فعال است. کتاب های او دوبار نامزد جایزه شعر الیوت بوده اند و خود او داور بسیاری از جوایز اروپایی ست. سمپسون دانش آموخته ی دکترای فلسفه زبان از دانشگاه آکسفورد است و تنها زنی بوده است که بعد از میورال اسپارک سردبیر نشریه پوئتری ریویو شده است.

یکی از خصلت های شعر فیونا شکستن نحو و دستور زبان و ساخت کلماتی ست که ترکیبی از چند کلمه ی دیگر به نظر می رسند.

http://rosajamali.blogfa.com/post/191



از کتاب های شعرِ او به این عناوین می‌توان اشاره کرد:

پائین بیا ( 2020)

گرفتن (2016)

کولشیل (2013)

فوگ شب (2013)

موسیقی خشن (2010)

نیایش معمولی (2007)

فاصله ی بین ما (2006)

خم کردن واقعیت (2001)

مردانِ پیکاسو(1994)























با هم شدن



اگر که من تو هستم، یا تو من هستی

که داریم در خداوند نفوذ می‌کنیم

و نزدیکی ما بزرگ می شود.



تو که نیمه ی مردانه ای

و خون

که مرا به غبار بدل می کنی



که ازین میز

به شکلی نامرئی بر علف ها وزیده ای



این توئی یا من،

می گذرم و نمی‌توانم ببینم؟







پس از نقشِ هوا



گوزن در این شبِ آرام

از درونِ خانه اش ماغ می کشد

از ماهِ تیر و از گرما

و از اینکه نتیجه‌اش درهم شکسته

در این سیاهیِ چسبناک

آسمانی که ساکن است

با غرشِ هواپیمایی.



تنفسی پس از بزرگترین نمایش هوایی جهان

زمین های کشاورزی و جاده بازسازی می‌شوند

و این قیرِ زبانه گون که آسمان را نقش کرده

کش می آید نیمه تاریک در آسمان و به سمتِ فرفورد گسیل می شود.



زمانی که گیلاس‌های کهنه می‌لرزند

اشکالِ سیاهی باز می شوند که از هم بپاشند

شاه،

سوگنامه‌ی انتقام

و رنگ های پیروزمندِ خداوند.







Fiona Sampson Translated into Persian By

Rosa Jamali



Communion

After the Air Tattoo

[Indu Muralidharan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to read this for my college term and tried very hard to get into this. The experimentation with language, the varied sequencing of words on the page, the changing syntax and the images which came through the seven chapters gave the the overall impression of a surreal modern art painting. Art for its own sake, that rejoices in being itself, irrespective of what, and whether, it communicates. It would have been a rewarding experience had it been more accessible. There is just too much of a distance between the book and the reader.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sure Ms. Sampson is really, really talented. This is just a little too adjectival for me. You know, things that smell nice and lace doilies and feelings and whatnot.