Fiona Sampson was born in London and grew up in the West Country of England, Gloucestershire and coastal Wales. She spent her teens and early 20s studying violin and performing as a soloist and chamber musician, then studied at Oxford, where she won the Newdigate Prize, and earned a Ph.D. in the philosophy of language at the University of Nijmegen. She has published 17 books, including five collections of poetry, works on the writing process and writing in health and social care, and a number of translations. In 2005 she became the first female editor of The Poetry Review, the literary magazine of the Poetry Society (UK).

Here are links to a few places where you can read or listen to her work online:

• The Poetry Foundation Web site has archived a number of her poems which first appeared in Poetry magazine: “Communion” from the January 2009 issue, “Zeus To Juno” from the November 2008 issue, and “After the Air Tattoo” and “The Lodger” from the December 2007 issue.
• Her page at the Poetry Archive (UK) has audio recordings of Sampson reading three poems: “Hay-on-Wye,” “The Plunge” and “Attitudes of Prayer.”
• She has written a number of columns for The Guardian (UK).

To purchase her books, use these shopping links:

• Folding the Real (poems, Seren, 2001)
  
• The Distance Between Us (verse novel, Seren, 2006)
  
• Common Prayer (poems, Carcanet Press, 2007)
  
• Rough Music (poems, Carcanet Press, 2010)
  

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