In Barry Dempster’s Being Here: The Chemistry of Startle, the poet travels the world, discovering all sorts of facts and truths, some of which had been buried deep inside himself for years. Whether it be the streets of Rio or New York; or posing for a snapshot beneath Berlin’s Brandenburg Gates; or fishing for carp in Estonia – through naming things a whole new world begins to take shape, only some of which will fit on a postcard. Being Here takes you to places where time itself has changed, like Dempster finding his Irish grandfather in the fields of a hundred years ago, coming this close to not making it home again. Some places are holes in the universe, but others demand participation: lay down next to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s grave and feel how the earth stirs just a little or stare deeply into the eyes of a new friend as she explains how her recent divorce almost split rock. How adventurous it can be to take imaginary trips as well. As Paul Eluard said so brilliantly, I must not look on reality as being like myself. Who are you, Antoine de Saint Exupery or Christopher Walken? Look and listen, protect yourself from those lap-probing dogs, entice the swallows with the scent of sex still wafting from your skin, shop for coloured glasses with a besotted Pablo Neruda, walk on the inside of the Berlin Wall, track a fox to Central Park and find out what she wants once and for all. Hold on to heaven, then run as fast as you can from hell. Being Here, The Chemistry of Startle is almost impossible to fit into a beaker, but when it’s released into your bloodstream, you can’t help but feel like you belong.

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)

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