an interview with Barry Dempster

Jacquline Kolosov: In one of his letters “To Benjamin Bailey, 22 November 1817,” John Keats writes: “I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart’s affections and the truth of the imagination.” How does Keats’s statement apply to your own work?

Barry Dempster: Lucky Keats: he was certain of two more things than I am. But yes, “the truth of the imagination” is a profound bit of truth itself. Without imagination there is no compassion and without compassion there is no ability to take that leap beyond one’s own cramped little quarters into another state or psyche. Without imagination, there would be no objectivity, or no gradations of subjectivity, no awareness of the unconscious, or the ego, or even the child within. The “truth of the imagination” is another way of acknowledging that without imagination there would only be one way of looking at experience. Can you imagine the horror—all those trap doors shut tight—everyone swearing he or she is the centre of the universe? Not much space there for “the holiness of the heart’s affections.”

Holiness is a tricky word: it can describe a mystery that goes beyond the merely mortal, but it can also strike a superior pose, ignoring other realities in order to cherish this rarified state of being. In my work, I write a lot about holiness, often criticizing the essential myopia of religious fundamentalism.Yet at the same time, I tend to get optimistic over incidences of faith, those moments of spiritual logic that surpass all the damage we do to one another in the name of God. There’s a rocky wall between man and God and it’s plastered with the hearts of people who call themselves true believers. We’re not just meant to cherish and surrender to holiness, but also to dismantle those structures that block the heart’s view of truth. I try to pitch my writing over that wall, remembering one of my favourite quotes, from Paul Eluard: “I must not mistake reality for being like myself.”

JK: Speaking more specifically about the relationship of poetry to truth, what is the relationship, and how does it come through in your own writing?

BD: I think ultimately that poetry attempts to tell the truth about language, to use words as if they were being discovered for the first time right there on the page. But beyond that, the literal truth can often get in the way of a poem’s having a life of its own. When I first started writing, I wrote about all sorts of different experiences, some autobiographical, while a few were inspired by other people’s stories or simply made up, that old “what if” enticement. I actually won an award early in my career for a poem imagining the death of my mother and when I was invited to read at the awards ceremony I brought my mother with me. People were disappointed she was still alive; a few even felt betrayed. I hadn’t told the literal truth. However, years later when my mother did die, I thought of that poem and realized how close in feeling the experience was to my long-ago conjecture of what it would be like to lose her. The factual truth—the right date, the right time, the right colour—isn’t the only truth in town.The imaginative truth can be every bit as profound, and can sometimes allow us to talk about issues and feelings that we wouldn’t be able to handle in a more connect-the-dots kind of way. Contrary to that old chestnut, “Write about what you know,” I prefer to write in order to discover what I didn’t know I knew, and to admit that experience alone is only part of the big story.

JK: What is your own writing process, distinguishing between poems that take a long time to come into being and those that, in my opinion at least, seem to be “gifts” because they come so quickly or, at least, so easily?

BD: The writing process is a very physical endeavour for me. When I’m not writing I absolutely cannot imagine myself using language in a way that will ultimately result in a poem. If I’m sitting on a bus, or walking down the street, or eating lunch, and I’m thinking about writing or beginning to hear that lovely music that often precedes a poem’s ideas, I feel daunted by it, not at all equal to the task. It’s not until I pick up a pen or sit down at my keyboard that I begin to feel capable of translating desire into action. Through the language, along with the tactile experience of pen or keyboard, I’m able to start finding my way into what I want to write about or where that music is calling from. I try to keep a certain writing schedule, simply because I find that the older I get, the more roughly life grabs me by the collar and drags me into the midst of its daily chaos. It’s very important for me, process-wise, to shut everything else out when I’m working, in order to live in the world of the poem as intensely as I can. The “gifts” are more apt to occur when my concentration levels are high.

I find that the more I define a poem beforehand, the more trouble I’m in because then I start to write an essay, the logical part of my brain intruding, and I stop hearing the music. It takes real diligence to stay in that moment, to be aware and vulnerable enough to follow the music where it leads. My best work comes when the content of a poem is just below the surface of consciousness so that the poem and I discover it together.

JK: We live in an age in which words are not always trustworthy. Politicians, advertising, and the news frequently distort “the truth.” Given these circumstances, what is poetry’s primary role in contemporary society?

BD: Unfortunately, poetry doesn’t really have much visibility in contemporary society. However, that doesn’t mean it can’t make a small, though incredibly important, difference to us collectively. Someone may come across a poem at a particular place or time—someone who doesn’t ordinarily read poetry, and who may not even understand poetry, but who could still be opened wide by one line or image. Even if we as poets are only addressing a fraction of the population, we need to write as if everyone was on the verge of listening. Poetry reclaims language; it repairs some of the damage that is done by all the corruption and manipulation inherent in the modern world by using words honestly, purely, eloquently. And that’s an invaluable role, even if the audience is small. Poetry has a life beyond the current society and I have to honour that continuum in my work. Language belongs to every being on the planet and one has to use that language with the knowledge of its sacredness intact and know that it’s a privilege and a responsibility. It’s fascinating that in a non-poetry- reading society, poetry continues to surface at times when people are struck speechless by the magnitude of the event: memorial services for the World Trade Center disaster, presidential inaugurations, funerals, and those moments where the ordinary usage of words fails.