This selected embraces Barton's passions for art, literature, the city and nature, including his ongoing passion for Emily Carr with four poems drawn from West of Darkness. Other personages make cameo appearances, including Andy Warhol, Frank O'Hara, Joseph Brodsky, M.C. Escher and C. P. Cavafy. Adolf Hitler has a dialogue-free, walk-on part early on.
What Barton accomplishes in For the Boy with the Eyes of the Virgin is best described by Barry Dempster: "This book reminds us of John Barton's stature as a consummate social poet, a topnotch lyricist, and a risk-taker of sometimes breathtaking scale."
"I No Longer Fear to Be a Man" Or, The John Barton Guide to Better Living R. M. Vaughan 9
from A Poor Photographer
The Pregnant Man 15
A Poor Photographer Improves His Vision 18
Hidden Structure
Hidden Structure 21
from West of Darkness: Emily Carr, a Self-Portrait
Grey 39
St. Josephs Hospital, 1937 41
Forest, British Columbia 42
A Skidegate Pole 44
from Great Men
My Cellophane Suit 46
Goodbye to All That 48
Great Men 50
Au Garage, Montréal 52
Naked Hearts 54
from Notes toward a Family Tree
In the Year of 56
Metropolitan Life 58
from Designs from the Interior
City in the Foothills 60
Delivery 62
Physical 64
Ecology 66
The Man from Grande Prairie 68
Parallel Lanes 70
For the Boy With the Eyes of the Virgin 72
from Sweet Ellipsis
Touch-Screen 75
Saranac Lake Variation 78
Pushing Upstream 82
Confidential 84
The Crisis of Lyricism 88
from Hypothesis
Watershed 91
Hypothesis 94
At Lindow 97
The Living Room 100
Escher 102
Sunrise, Grand Canyon 104
All That Enters Must Pass Through 108
from Hymn
Aide-Mémoire 114
Warhol 118
Pathetic Fallacy 120
In the House of the Present 122
Days of 2004, Days of Cavafy 125
Acknowledgements 133
About the Author 135
Overview