Notes Toward a Family Tree

Dennis Denisoff teaches English at McGill University and is the author
of Dog Years.

With Notes Toward a Family Tree, John Barton moves closer to
establishing himself as one of Canada’s strongest realist poets. Both
West of Darkness: A Portrait of Emily Carr and Great Men garnered
positive responses from reviewers, and his latest publication will do
the same. The poems are packed with Barton’s subtle observations and
loose, comfortable narratives. While his style and use of language are
often traditional, the chosen thematic focus will come as a surprise to
anybody who has been following his work.

With Great Men, Barton offered a series of sensitive and insightful
poems on male homosexual affection and love; Notes Toward a Family Tree
depicts heterosexual relations in a similar light. The author observes,
in a note at the back of the book, that some gay people “pursue values
and love objects in harmony with those of our straight brothers and
sisters, friends and relatives.” Thus, the publication of this
collection signifies for Barton a willingness to remember and validate
his past heterosexual experiences. It is misleading, however, to suggest
that the book is simply another collection of poems about unsure hearts
in straight relationships.

Barton states that the poems, most of which were written in the 1980s,
were originally combined with those in Great Men, and that it was only
afterward that he separated the gay poems from the straight ones. While
Notes Toward a Family Tree is supposed to constitute the straight set,
most of the poems deal with the ambiguity of desire itself. The notion
of sexual preferences is often subordinated in this text to
collectivizing human traits that are frequently not wholly
commensurable, such as the desire for affection, the desire for
self-definition, and the desire for freedom of choice. These poems, so
full of sunlight, smiles, and open arms, are also marked by shadows,
doubt, and empty hands. In this collection, Barton succeeds in depicting
the importance of human affection while maintaining an awareness of the
tenuousness and amorphic quality of the relations that are supposed to
secure love.