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Poet Sam Hamill dies at age 74

Sam Hamill, editor of the prestigious Copper Caynon Press, sits in his home office, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2003, in Port Townsend, Wash. (JIM BRYANT / Associated Press)
Associated Press
Sam Hamill, editor of the prestigious Copper Caynon Press, sits in his home office, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2003, in Port Townsend, Wash. (JIM BRYANT / Associated Press)

PORT TOWNSEND, Wash. – Sam Hamill, a poet and translator and the founding editor of an independent publishing company in Washington state, has died. He was 74.

Hamill died Saturday at his home in Anacortes, Washington, following a period of ill health. His death was announced by Copper Canyon Press, the publishing company he started in 1972. He left the company, which specialized in publishing poetry, in 2004.

Hamill wrote and translated numerous poetry collections. He had been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the Mellon Fund, and had won the Stanley Lindberg Lifetime Achievement Award for Editing and the Washington Poets Association Lifetime Achievement Award.

He is survived by a daughter, Eron Hamill, of British Columbia.