Books published by Homestead Lighthouse Press

The Greek philosopher Aristotle distinguishes between two disciplines, history and poetry. He suggests that history reports what happened and therefore is concerned with particulars, whereas poetry is more philosophical and concerned with universals. I agree. My poetry is an authentic presentation of my inner world, and unlike history, the study of which I have been dedicating my life for many years, it is not subject to all the constraints and imperfections of actual life. I believe my poems, though autobiographical and personal, can appeal to anyone; the personal story in my poetry may illuminate your story because it tells the truth, my truth and yours. I described this kind of truth in one of my poems, portraying it "like a petalled rose emerging from one stem offering its sweet fragrance and infinite beauty to humanity." With age come better knowledge and a wider experience of life. This comes up through my poems. Walking you through the seasons of my life, they start with a deep yearning and longing to the beginning, growing up in Israel; they continue through the experience of my multi-faceted love for and intimacy with my beloved wife Rosie of blessed memory, the central figure in my life over 50 years; they shift to my preoccupation with the questions of oneness and harmony in the world; they go through the period of my spiritual awakening and illumination; and they finally end where life in This World concludes, in death and grieving.

These poems are a guide and compassionate companion for meditative practice. Carol Alena Aronoff, PhD, poet, psychologist, teacher and writer, co-founded SAGE, a psycho-spiritual program for elders. She has guided a Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Center and taught Eastern spirituality and practices and meditation at San Francisco State University.

Sampson has long been considered a cherished poet’s poet by his peers. One could add ‘a poetry reader’s poet’ to this rare accolade. It fits because Dennis Sampson has always been the most voracious of poetry readers and talkers. His beloved, wholly assimilated influences include Dante and Theodore Roethke, William Blake and Delmore Schwartz, Elizabeth Bishop and D. H. Lawrence among others.A fierce practitioner and teacher of the art of poetry, Sampson has always lived an independent, rigorous life of principle as he has come to believe in it. Poetry first, Poetry last & Poetry in between might well be his motto. Poetry is his life and his life, in all its strange guises and mazy motions, is in the poetry.The recipient of grants from The Virginia Council on the Arts and The North Carolina Arts Council, Sampson’s poems have appeared in such magazines as The American Scholar, The Ohio Review, The Hudson Review and many others. He has taught as Writer-in-Residence at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, as the Visiting Poet in the M.F.A Program in Creative Writing at UNC Wilmington, and at Wake Forest University. He lives in North Carolina.