Sam Hunt (poet)

Samuel Percival Maitland "Sam" Hunt, CNZM, QSM (born 4 July 1946, Castor Bay Auckland) 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. He has been referred to as New Zealand's best-known poet.

Hunt's father, a barrister, was sixty when Hunt was born (his mother was 30). Hunt grew up at Castor Bay on the North Shore of Auckland. His became interested in poetry because of his mother. Hunt loved his unconventional parents and " ... early poems featuring his father remain amongst his best". Hunt has an older brother, Jonathan, and they have an older half-brother, Alexander Hunt.

Hunt was educated at St Peter's College, Auckland which he attended from 1958-63. At St Peter's Hunt chafed under the Christian Brother's authoritarianism. He would later recount on numerous occasions an incident in which he was strapped for reciting a poem by James K. Baxter, which had sexual imagery, in the classroom. He was 14 at the time.

He had a pronounced stutter and an original style of dress and deportment which did not help. He expressed his individuality and the pressures of adolescence in poems. Some of his earliest poems were published in the St Peter's College annual magazines. However, Hunt was good at some sports (running and diving) and had academic success. He has said that at the end of his sixth form year (he was 16) it was indicated to him by the headmaster of the school that he was not expected to return for the upper sixth form year. Hunt interpreted this as a request to leave school, which he did. In his final year at St Peter's his English master had been the poet Ken Arvidson and he had obtained University Entrance.

Hunt has said that "if Mr Arvidson ... had not come to the school, I would not have lasted [at St Peter's] as long as I did, and I'd just turned sixteen when I left. He introduced me to poets like Gordon Challis, who I've gone on loving ever since". Arvidson endowed a poetry prize at St Peter's and this was awarded to Sam Hunt in 1963. One of Hunt's most reproduced poems is Brother Lynch, a poem about a St Peter's College teacher, Brother J B Lynch, who was sympathetic to the young Hunt. An annual literature competition at St Peter's College is named after Sam Hunt, and he has acted as its judge.

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