The Burning Alphabet

The Burning Alphabet confirms and extends Barry Dempster’s reputation as one of Canada’s most respected poets. Underpinning these poems, as in his previous work, there lies an unswerving dedication to emotional and spiritual honesty, clear-eyed recognitions rendered without pomp. In one section, Sick Days, he focuses on that other place of chronic illness. Other poems present arguments against suicide, and explore the tropical wonders of a woman’s closet. The closing section renders, with great candour and poignancy, the powerful love-hate relationship with an aging father. Dempster writes as though it were simply natural to have speech and song cohabit with such grace.

In the thick of night, when we’re dreaming of
corridors and Dali clocks, the soft brown
bodies of bucks and does are basking
in our moonlight, nibbling on the last of our
lettuce leaves, scratching impressions in our sand.
They are the children we wish we’d had,

fleeting images of ourselves before
inner lives grew blotchy, eyes heavy with
10 p.m. cop shows and those blessedly
nonsensical dreams. ?

From Deer

In The Burning Alphabet, mood, with all its elaborate subtleties and manifestations, both in sickness and in health, constitutes a metaphysics. I feel as though I’ve lived an entire inner life in these pages, wrenching, dark, and amazingly sweet. ?Roo Borson

Shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry 2005; Winner of the CAA Jack Chalmers Poetry Award