Selected Reviews
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“Yet, at their best, Dempster’s stories do what all good short fiction should: give us characters who live and breathe and themes that braid themselves effortlessly around a memorable premise.”
— Mark Sampson, Quill & Quire
Tread & Other Stories
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"Exactly what you’d expect from a master writing his twelfth book."
- Natalie Thompson, PRISIM International
Blue Wherever
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“The best poems – and there are several – are staggering in their mixture of candour and cunning craft. Dempster claims to “cherish the explicit” – a risky gambit for a poet, but it pays dividends by consistently eschewing the sentimental. Dempster will also often defuse the tension of his dramas with a well-timed joke.”
— Zachariah Wells, Quill & Quire
The Burning Alphabet
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“The Outside World has qualities similar to Dempster's fourteen books of poetry—a kind of unpretentious lyricism, well-crafted images accompanied by natural-seeming rhythms and lines, as well as occasional, admirable philosophical depths.”
— Jamie Dopp, The Malahat Review
The Outside World
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"Disturbing the Buddha is another in a long line of very satisfying books of poetry from Barry Dempster. This is how the pros do it."
- Michael Dennis, Today’s Book of Poetry
Disturbing the Buddha
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"With its blue-collar charm and strong episodic pacing, The Outside World is a great fall read, letting us consider the change in our social lives at the same time we witness changes in the seasons."
- Danny Gorny, Toronto Guardian
The Outside World