The Collected Poems of Miriam Waddington: A Critical Edition

Miriam Waddington published fourteen volumes of verse during her lifetime and participated in the rise and flowering of modernist Canadian poetry. She wrote layered verse from a gendered position, first as a young social worker who recognized aspects of herself in her most vulnerable clients. She detailed intoxicating romance and mature love, the pleasures of marriage and motherhood, the experience of raising two sons to adulthood and the ineffable pain of divorce. As she moved through life, she wrote clearly and uncompromisingly about the vast sweep of Canada, her travels to new lands, the passage of time, the death of her ex-husband, the loss of close friends and, later, of growing old.
Waddington’s verse is deceptively accessible: it is personal but never private, emotional but not confessional, thoughtful but never cerebral. The subtlety of her craft is the hallmark of a modernist poet whose work opens to the world and its readers. This edition, complete with a critical introduction and comprehensive annotations, appeals to academics and lovers of poetry alike. The verse collected here will neither disappoint the attentive reader nor betray the poet.