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.