Love Outlandish
Description
A love affair chronicled-from obsession to heartbreak, foolhardiness to faith.
In Love Outlandish, Barry Dempster undoes all the clichés that have barnacled our love lives and, with the zest and courage typical of his work, explores their torrents and eddies afresh. As in his previous books, Dempster responds to D.H. Lawrence's plea that we should discover and articulate what the heart really wants rather than some idealized version of it. Thoughtful, passionate, full of humour and self-aware wit, Love Outlandish delivers, again and again, the shock of recognition that permits us to laugh at, and with, the very emotions it probes. This is a book to relish for its energy and cherish for its wisdom.
"My favourite is the one where his love
keeps trouncing distance
even after she's gone, making
harmonies out of death rattles.
It's the crack in his heart
where the melody lingers, the hiss
of an old 45. How can I help
but sing along, hard, hard song,
unconditional illusion."
-from "Hard Song"
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Barry Dempster is the author of fourteen poetry collections, a novel, two volumes of short stories and a children's book. He teaches writing workshops from Banff, Alberta to Santiago, Chile. His most recent books include Love Outlandish, Ivan's Birches, Blue Wherever and Dying a Little. A new novel is forthcoming from Pedlar Press in November 2013.