Barry Dempster Writers in Residence Archives
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April 07, 2014
Compression
In Stephanie Bolster’s “A Page from the Wonders of Life on Earth,” the writing is acutely compressed, each word standing in for what in another poet’s hands might take pages. There’s no room ...
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April 05, 2014
Fear of Flying
I gave a public performance the other night. It was supposed to be a reading from my recent novel, “The Outside World,” but I thought I’d sneak in a few poems from my “Invisible Dogs” as well. ...
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April 04, 2014
Fame
Patrick Friesen is a true lyric poet, open and honest, singing more often than talking. His poems are almost bodiless, his words slowly turning into rivers. In “Earth’s Crude Gravities,” language ...
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April 03, 2014
Voice
Maureen McLane’s book, “My Poets,” goes beyond poetics and criticism into a kind of channeling of the poets themselves: her versions of their work, her obsessions with their obsessions. She not ...
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April 02, 2014
Poetics of Place
I’ve been thinking about the poetics of place: Tim Lilburn’s Moosewood Sandhills; Don Domanski’s wilderness of a cosmos; Karen Solie’s truck stops and motels; Tim Bowling’s fishing boats. It’s ...
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April 01, 2014
Welcome to National Poetry Month
I always feel a bit uncomfortable when Poetry Month commences. It’s like I’ve had a secret for the last eleven months, no one really interested in how I’ve spent my days, successfully managing to ...
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March 27, 2014
The Proust Questionnaire, with Barry Dempster
Barry Dempster is a poet, novelist, short fiction writer, children's writer and an editor, and is Open Book: Toronto's April 2014 Writer-in-Residence.Stay tuned throughout the month to hear from Barry ...