Dead Man's Float by Derk Wynand - Night Fishing (Brick Books) - Brick Books Poetry Map (sitios de interés)

Dead Man's Float details that sad emblem of Western alienation, the tourist couple in their rented tropical Eden. Here life is temporary and not at all cheap.

The wildlife is spectacular, the culture incomprehensible, and the locals politely try to hide their hilarity at Canadian pidgin Spanish.

Heat, beaches, ruins - why did we think they could distract us from domestic squabbling or the 3 a.m. dreads?

Derk Wynand was born in Bad Suderode, Germany in 1944 and has lived in Canada since 1952.

The author of several works of poetry, fiction and translation, and a former editor of The Malahat Review. He taught English and Creative Writing at the University of Victoria from 1969 to 2004, serving six years as Chair of the Dept. of Writing.

Brick Books published Wynand's Closer to Home in 1997. He has a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of British Columbia, and He lives in Victoria with his wife Eva.

Cover art: 'Dead Man's Float' by Eva Wynand, 2000

Derk Wynand reads Night Fishing from Dead Man's Float on Audioboo

Derk Wynand reads from Dead Man's Float on YouTube

Tips for fishing at night

Derk Wynand wrings wry existential meditations from firsthand experience of the Exotic - the First World and the Third in their ritual winter dance.

How could anyone
not adore you,
little devourer of
large moths, sticky
ceiling-hanger, light-
lurker, master of
stillness whenever it
suits you?

...
Even the steady ocean
wobbles, the surf breaking harder on the ear,
on the rocks below. All night, the night looms
loud and large, providing only small silences
for a gecko maybe feeling small, and lacking
the comforts of religion or politics or family.

from "Gecko"

Buy Dead Man's Float by Derk Wynand at Brick Books