The Last Landscape

Peter Baltensperger is the editor and publisher of Moonstone Press and
the author of Arcana.

Waddington’s latest collection is characterized by many of the topics
and themes prevalent in her earlier books: family life, childhood and
youth, woman as universal sufferer and redeemer, the landscapes and
mythologies of 20th-century society. Her poetic style still carries the
lyricism and reflects the deep sensitivity that made her one of
Canada’s foremost and much-praised poets. As in her previous
collections, the role of woman in society and in the universal scheme of
things serves as a main focal point, “the woman who / at last awakens
in you / your broken promises your / ancient righteousness” (“The
Woman in the Hall”).

But whereas her earlier work celebrated womanhood and the cycles of
life, The Last Landscape is laced with regrets and sad nostalgia,
lamenting lost youth, lost loves, lost dreams, and the prevailing
presence of death. A strong atmosphere of disillusionment pervades most
of the poems, and the imagery is almost without exception
correspondingly dark and hauntingly negative, as if the poet had grown
tired of celebrating a life she feels is rapidly slipping by, as if
“in the next instant / (she) will be gone” (“The Visitor”).

The poems are, however, nonetheless powerful and compelling, the
language and imagery razor-sharp in the precision with which they
externalize the deep feelings of a visionary reflecting honestly and
starkly upon her own life and upon life as it lives itself around her.
The book is testimony to Waddington’s rich career as a woman and a
poet. The easy rhythm of her poems carries us through the trials and
tribulations of her existence and draws us irresistibly into the webs of
imagination and poetic sensibility she knows how to weave so well.