Blue Wherever

In the new world, we wake up/to a bone ark bobbing on a blue wherever, Dempster writes in the title poem of this new collection, his twelfth book of poetry. He connects the intensity of loving someone with the visceral vividness of being alive, as though waking from a beautiful dream and finding the world still sparkling. Granted, there is still loss and loneliness, even huge awols of hope, but the particulars of the outside world remain spectacular despite their ordinariness: cedar wax-wings with their little caramel whisks of hairdo above Lone Ranger masks; the one-eyed horse who wouldn’t/blame you if you ran, muck flicking from the soles of your shoes; the river rocks in the front garden pretending the inanimate way is holy, a stunning coldness in the place of eyes.

Blue Wherever returns us to being in the moment with an intensity and beguilement often reserved for romantic love, and from the various perspectives of observer and creator. Whether it be Pancake Tuesday, a lonely Office Party or a Sunday drive through strip-mall Wastelands, Dempster reminds us there is still much to see and myriad reasons for staying awake and alive.