Closer to Home

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

British Columbia poet Derk Wynand is the editor of The Malahat Review
and a professor of writing at the University of Victoria. Closer to
Home, his 13th book, focuses on domestic subjects in such poems as
“Mowing the Lawn and Putting It Off” and “Sultry Weather.” These
topics are closely scrutinized; Wynand notes, for example, that Chinese
sunhats will not come off in the wind, though they shift from one side
of the brain to the other.

The topical poems are more impressive. In “Ferry,” Wynand
critically examines Christianity, chiding evangelists for “promoting
our guilt.” Although the faith’s founding principle is “God become
flesh,” he attacks their interpretation—“Deity in diapers”— as
trivial. “Starlings One August” takes relevance to the next level,
describing Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait shortly after that
event. Ironically enough, the Iraqi dictator remains a topical figure
years later.

This “establishment” author draws the once-forbidden topic of gay
male love into the mainstream. In “One Arsonist, Two Firemen,” two
dead male firefighters are found in a romantic embrace. Of society’s
reaction, Wynand observes, “[T]heir locked arms have already been
broken / to separate them.” As a poet, Wynand offers only the routine;
it is when he adopts the role of social critic that he truly delivers.