Frank Samperi

Frank Samperi (1933–1991) was an American poet born in New York.

Life
Frank Samperi was born in Brooklyn, New York, the illegitimate child of an Italian mother who died when he was 11. After two years in an orphanage, he was brought up by aunts. At 20 he enlisted and was sent to fight in the Korean War where he eventually suffered a nervous breakdown due to battlefield trauma and was honorably discharged. He then returned to Brooklyn, where he began writing the poems of his first collection, Song Book. After attending a writing workshop he met the poet Louis Zukofsky, who became an early mentor and also introduced him to Cid Corman. Having married, Samperi took a teaching position in Japan in 1964. There the connection with Corman was renewed and resulted in his poems being championed in Origin (magazine) and published in limited editions from Kyoto. He shortly returned to Brooklyn, completing one poetic trilogy (published between 1971–73) and working on a six-part composition titled COMPREHENSOR Viator, only parts of which were published in limited editions. In the early 1980s Samperi moved to Sun City, Arizona, but declining health prevented him from writing much more before his death at the age of 58. His early poetry was a luminous notation of things seen, pared down in language and form –
 * no greater vista
 * than the inward
 * opening
 * out
 * and beyond

This laid the groundwork of an eventual religious vision based on Dante's Divine Comedy and the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas.