poems by JOHN BARTON
March 2026

36 pp., thread bound, 5.75"x 7.5"
ISBN # 978-1-998521-09-8
in an edition of 75 numbered copies
cover of St. Armand Canal paper
flyleaf of Uzumaki tissue

edited by: Anita Lahey

Labyrinth is a collection of 20 sonnets with a central corona sequence.

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John Barton is a poet, essayist, and editor. His thirteen books of poetry include Hymn, For the Boy with the Eyes of the Virgin: Selected Poems, Polari, Lost Family : A Memoir, which was nominated for the 2021 Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry, and Compulsory Figures. Sonnets from Lost Family have been set to music and premiered as Coda for the Victims at VerseFest in Ottawa, with the support and leadership of Qu’ART, in March 2023, and as Chosen Family by the Chronos Vocal Ensemble in Edmonton to settings composed by Stuart Beatch in January 2024. John’s other books include Seminal: The Anthology of Canada’s Gay Male Poets, The Malahat Review at Fifty, We Are Not Avatars: Essays, Memoirs , Manifestos, and The Essential Douglas LePan, which won a 2020 eLit Award. Born in Edmonton and raised in Calgary, he lives in Victoria, where he was the city’s poet laureate from 2019 to 2022.

author photo: Ernest Wiltshire