Knucklebones: Poems 1962–2012 - Sam Hunt

Craig Potton Publishing  announce the release of Knucklebones: Poems 1962–2012 from New Zealand’s best-known and, arguably, best-loved poet; Sam Hunt.

Knucklebones: Poems 1962–2012 is the latest collection of Hunt’s poems to be published. Organised chronologically with a selection of poems from each of his published books, Knucklebones presents an outstanding collection of Hunt’s work, that runs from the earliest poems that first made his name, through to his more recent poems from 2012.

Since the publication of Doubtless: New and Selected Poems in 2008 (which has sold over 5000 copies), Sam’s career has been having a significant renaissance. He continues to regularly perform, with shows booked in Christchurch and Dunedin in July, has published a memoir – Backroads: charting a poet’s life, a new collection of poems – Chords & other poems, had a feature documentary - ‘Purple Balloon’ go to general cinematic release and collaborated with Dick Frizzell on a series of poem paintings.

Sam Hunt has had a remarkable and enduring 50 year career, and Knucklebones is a fitting tribute to the quality of his remarkable poems.


I remember publishing Sam Hunt: Collected Poems 1963-1980 at Penguin Books way back in 1980.Back in those days Sam was a regular performer at the long gone, much lamented Gluepot Tavern in Ponsonby. And before that, in the mid- 70's he used to call on me at Beattie & Forbes Bookshop in  Napier selling Alister Taylor titles out of the back of his ambulance where his much-loved dog Minstrel kept an eye on things.He does seem to have been around forever. And what a great entertainer and poet he has been. Cheers Sam.
And thanks to his publishers for putting this new work out in a handsome hardback edition.

From the Preface 

Knucklebones is a collection of poems selected from all Sam Hunt’s published work. While this book begins with poems from Bracken Country, his first collection published in 1971, this collection actually spans 50 years of writing, as the earliest poem in this collection was written in 1962, before concluding with poems written in 2012. The only one of Sam’s books not drawn from in Knucklebones is the autobiographical Backroads: Charting a Poet’s Life (Craig Potton Publishing, 2009).  

A chronological outrider in this collection is Christmas 1953 which appears below. While Sam has always remembered this poem (his recall for thousands of poems is legendary), it was not until after his mother’s death, while sorting through her papers, that he found a definitive hard copy. It was written at his childhood home at Milford Beach on the North Shore of Auckland, at the age of seven. The poems have not stopped since.


Christmas 1953


Climb up the cliff path to
the pines where through
their needles the salt wind blow


and far below
the fish and ocean go


and down the cliff path home
bring a lone
Christmas tree 


and by the beach
let it in warm winds grow.


(Sam Hunt, age 7)