Trouble Sleeping

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

Phil Hall, a Toronto editor and teacher, attempts to interpret and
exorcise his “white trash” postwar Ontario childhood with a haibun
entitled Trouble Sleeping. Hall defines a haibun as “a Japanese form
of interwoven journey-prose and poetry.” He may vary his literary
technique, in order to execute his grand vision, but produces an
inconsistent pastiche instead. Pretentious lines such as “if
continents again tonight go to sleep turning pages” are fodder for
those who mock modern poetry.

Hall’s revelation about being sexually abused by his cousin is
supposed to be this book’s highlight, but it is not totally
successful. When he tells what his abuser’s “wolves would do to me,
and where I’d be sent, if I ever told,” the language echoes some old
telefilm. On the other hand, the lines “EACH TIME I SEE panties along
a highway, or a child’s mitt in an / alley, an ominous foreboding
backhands me. I imagine the ways our / clothing comes off and am never
far wrong” articulately describe the situation with subtle
originality.

A poem that lists childhood pets and cultural icons establishes the
foundations of Hall’s rough background. Boomers may remember
children’s TV host “Uncle Bobby” and wrestling hero “Whipper
Billy Watson.” Those from rural backgrounds may have listened to Wilf
Carter’s country songs; “Little Johnny Fucker-Faster, Rusty
Warren” evokes dirty jokes and adult party records. “Memory Lane”
has its picaresque detours.