Leaving the Narrow Place

Ronald Charles Epstein is a Toronto-based freelance writer and published poet.

Dorothy Field was born in New York, but has been a Vancouver Island
farmer for the past few decades. She produced paper for special books
when she was a visual artist. Now she writes poetry and lets Oolichan
Books worry about the production values.

Field’s book might attract a predominantly female readership. This
assessment could be attacked as an example of patronizing male
chauvinism, especially by those who did not read “When time was
food,” which finds the poet “feeding my infant daughter / pumping
breast milk.”

The poet takes a special approach to her Jewish background. Her
childhood was extremely assimilated; she recalls “a huge Christmas
tree ... with glass ornaments hand-blown in Germany.” Now she lives in
an area remote from major Jewish communities and sides with the
Palestinians. Traditional Jews may view her as one who has always lived
outside mainstream Jewish culture.

“Pruning Wisteria” becomes a metaphor for parental discipline. The
poet’s “father, demon pruner, tried to shape / his children, when he
couldn’t govern / the panic within.” She realizes that “Wisteria
cracks through / asphalt, pulls down roofs” and assumes the
disciplinarian’s role.