Landscapes of Time: New, Uncollected, and Selected Poems

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

There are certain poets distinguished by their dogged exploration of
great themes; others find material for verse in the manifold, various,
apparently unconnected events and thoughts that they experience from day
to day. Alastair Macdonald belongs to the latter group. He was born in
the United Kingdom, spent much of his life teaching in Newfoundland, and
has previously published five books of verse. Landscapes of Time (an
evocative title that is matched with a superbly evocative cover) is
subtitled “New, Uncollected, and Selected Poems,” but we are not
told which poems are which.

Macdonald is at his best with ordinary yet slightly offbeat topics:
“Tamara Desni” is about a film star of his childhood years whom he
had heard of but never seen; “Ending” is about an unfinished poem
begun in his youth that now, “editor only,” he tries to complete;
“Bather” is a memorably poignant poem about an old man swimming in
the sea to the giggly derision of the young.

The poems in this collection rarely employ regular metres or rhyme, and
given their character, I think this is a pity. I found myself attracted
to the general idea of his poems but felt that most of them went on too
long, or failed to clinch their points with a crisp phrase or unexpected
turn of thought. Macdonald possesses the perseverance to write on almost
any topic that occurs to him, but (for me, at least) too many of the
poems lack urgency. Perhaps I was disappointed because the title seemed
to promise a profundity that was never delivered. As minor verse,
however, it can claim a solid integrity.