Dreaming My Father's Body

Thomas M.F. Gerry is a professor of English at Laurentian University.

In his second collection of poems, Wilson struggles to come to terms
with images that appear dimly to him in an overwhelming darkness. Mostly
the images are of his recently deceased father and of the poet in
relation to his father. The poems are sad, brimming with puzzled
memories. In death, it seems, his father has become a dream and
Wilson’s memories of his interactions with his father are dreams. As
though from underground or underwater, he attempts to articulate these
dreams, expressing clearly the dreams’ elusiveness, evanescence, and
doubleness—the haunting chance that they are illusory, deceptive.

Wilson’s voice is personal and idiosyncratic, insisting on
relentlessly shaking off ritual, including habitual ways of feeling and
seeing. His tone is serious and committed. His images are aptly chosen:
empty gloves, the Avro Arrow, a storm-clouded sunset, Niagara Falls,
Marilyn Monroe. He claims in “A Way with Apples” that he desires to
be defiant. The reader eagerly awaits further results of his defiance.
The poet’s so eloquently uttering the loss and direness of his
predicament seems to be his way of seeking nurturance in the dark—a
necessary first step.