The Words Wanting Out

Douglas Barbour is a professor of English at the University of Alberta.
He is the author of Lyric/anti-lyric : Essays on Contemporary Poetry,
Breath Takes, and Fragmenting Body Etc.

The Words Wanting Out provides a selection of Barry Dempster’s
“selected and new” poems. The book’s organization is intriguing,
if somewhat mystifying. Many of the poems in the first section seem to
be about the poet’s childhood and family, and there are hints of
themes in the four sections that follow.

Dempster tends to tell stories, and often those that memory brings. His
memories and imaginative retellings of events in his parents’ and
grandparents’ lives join with his own memories and imaginings to offer
a glimpse of ordinary life in Scarborough, Ontario. The other major
thread in the volume is an argument with belief (rather than directly
with God), as the poet explores the weird turns Christian faith took in
the late 20th century. One of the best of these poems, “Believing in
Billy,” considers the Graham crusade phenomenon: “But TV always
ends, living / rooms dry as plaster, the world / dark and fabric once
again.” This fact leads to a sad awareness: “Where do you go, Billy?
/ You are a lot like God — / a flickering glimpse.”

All in all, The Words Wanting Out provides a useful and entertaining
overview of Barry Dempster’s career, and will offer new readers a
sense of his poetic oeuvre.