Virtuosic poems tracking two intertwined themes: the breakdown of an obsessive love affair and the vicissitudes of middle age.

Invisible Dogs, Dempster's fourteenth collection, is a complex but deeply coherent hymn to the difficult business of staying alive. This is a book for when it hurts so bad you hope you'll die and are afraid you won't—not because it offers consolation or the promise of a new dawn, but because it so compellingly documents the plain, hard, ungraceful, stumbling grief of the matter, and meets it with rare self-knowledge, wry humour, and an unornamented determination to go on living.

Dempster's metaphors are like hairpin turns taken at breakneck speed. He has nerves of steel when it comes to self-examination, and it's this relentless honesty and the emotional torque it induces that keep the voice on the road.

Barry Dempster is an award-winning poet, author, editor and mentor. He lives in Holland Landing, Ontario.

OTHER PUBLISHED WORKS

Poetry

Fables For Isolated Men (Guernica Editions, Montreal, 1982) Shortlisted for the Governor General's Award
Globe Doubts (Quarry Press, Kingston, 1983)
Positions To Pray (Guernica Editions, Montreal, 1989)
The Unavoidable Man (Quarry Press, Kingston, 1990)
Letters From A Long Illness With The World, the D.H. Lawrence Poems (Brick Books, London, Ontario, 1993)
Fire and Brimstone (Empyreal Press, Montreal, 1997)
The Salvation of Desire (St. Thomas Press, Toronto, 2000)
The Words Wanting Out, Selected & New Poems (Nightwood Editions, Roberts Creek, 2003)
The Burning Alphabet (Brick Books, London, Ontario, 2005) Shortlisted for the Governor General's Award
Love Outlandish (Brick Books, London, Ontario, 2009)
Ivan's Birches (Pedlar Press, Toronto, 2009)
Blue Wherever (Signature Editions, 2010)
Dying a Little (Wolsak and Wynn, 2011)
Invisible Dogs (Brick Books, 2013)

Fiction

Real Places and Imaginary Men (Oberon Press, Ottawa, 1984)
Writing Home (Oberon Press, Ottawa, 1989)
The Ascension of Jesse Rapture (Quarry Press, Kingston, 1993)

Barry Dempster's profile page

Praise for The Burning Alphabet: 'Few if any poets encompass the range, the dynamism, and the spectrum of emotional colours Barry Dempster does. The Burning Alphabet bravely tackles such potentially demoralizing matters as chronic illness, the chasm between father and son, suburbia, and the gross derangements of our society with a combination of tender rambunctiousness, broad deep humour, and a fervent zest for the possibilities of language and for re-imagining life's bewilderments that's unparalleled. Barry Dempster creates word music that is both delightfully insightful and memorable.' – Canadian Authors' Association Chalmers Award Judges

';For over two decades I've marveled at Barry Dempster's poetry, at his generous and wide-reaching spirit. A spirit that makes his poems crackle with innovational energy. He delves deeply into both himself and the world, to bring forth his singular voice, so rich with insights and cadences. His vivid relationship with language is infused by a sensibility and perceptiveness which makes his work shimmer with the musicality of existence itself. He is simply one of the best poets we have and The Burning Alphabet will add greatly to is already distinguished reputation.' – Don Domanski

Praise for Love Outlandish: 'In Love Outlandish, Barry Dempster presents love in many shapes from shifting angles, then collates the results, from the passionate and the faithful to the obsessive and off-beat. I was struck by both the steadfastness of theme and the unifying style and voice, revealing a speaker of wry humour, capable of self-irony in his pursuit of the truth at whatever cost. Love Outlandish may be Dempster's best collection to date, both in terms of its thematic integrity and as a cumulative intensifying of its poet's perspective on love. – Gillian Harding-Russell, Prairie Fire