Sam Hamill
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Sam Hamill (born 1948) is a librarian, poet and publisher of Unfinished Monument Press. He hosted a poetry reading series at the Main Street Library in Port Townsend, Washington. He was a founding member of the Canadian Poetry Association on January 16, 1985. He has been a proponent of Japanese haiku. Born on Hamilton Mountain, Ontario, in 1948, his family emigrated to the southern U.S. when he was six. Although a Canadian citizen by birth, he was eligible for the draft for the Vietnam War as a resident alien. Hamill became an anti-war activist in Miami, Florida, attending demonstrations, organizing a campus group and publishing an underground newsletter. Around 1968 Hamill began writing haiku poetry under the tutelage of Eric Amann, the publisher of Haiku magazine.
Hamill lived for two years in the largest commune in the United Kingdom, the derelict Eel Pie Island Hotel in Twickenham tells the story of his explorations and adventures in the late '60s and early '70s. He returned to Canada in 1972 and joined the anti-imperialist Canadian Liberation Movement. In the CLM he met poets Milton Acorn and James Deahl and resumed writing poetry.
In addition to writing haiku, lyrical and political poetry, Hamill founded Unfinished Monument Press in 1978. The Main Street Library Poetry Readings began the following year. He was also a founding member of The Canadian Poetry Association, with James Deahl, Shaunt Basmajian and Wayne Ray and a founding member of Haiku Canada, with Eric Amann, George Swede, Margaret Saunders and others. In 1987 Hamill was the first recipient of the Milton Acorn People's Poetry Award for his book Foot Through the Ceiling (Aya/Mercury Press). He moved to the Port Townsend area of Washington in 1989. He has worked as the head librarian/CEO in the village of Port Townsend for the past seven years.
[edit] Bibliography
- Cricket Formations (haiku), C & C Printing Richmond, England, 1969
- Guest in a Garden (haiku), C & C Printing, Richmond, England, 1969
- Dominion Day in Jail (Unfinished Monument Press, 1978)
- College Streetcar Runs All Night (Unfinished Monument Press, 1979)
- White Rasta (Unfinished Monument Press, 1980)
- Sleeping in Ruins (Unfinished Monument Press, 1981)
- Unacknowledged Legislator, blewointmentpress, 1981
- White Rasta in Wintertime (Unfinished Monument Press, 1982)
- Island Women (HMS Press, 1983)
- Five Minutes Ago They Dropped the Bomb (Unfinished Monument Press, 1984)
- Foot Through the Ceiling, Aya/Mercury Press, 1986
- Mr. Library Man, Haiku Canada Broadsheet, 1988
- 13 Bohemian Dreams, Unfinished Monument Press, 1988
- Moon City (haiku), Greensleeve Publishing, 1989
- Eel Pie Dharma: a memoir/haibun, Unfinished Monument Press, 1990
