SOURCE: “Getting There and Going Beyond: David Wagoner's Journey Without Regret,” in The Literary Review, Vol. 28, No. 1, 1984, pp. 93–8.

In the following essay, McAulay traces Wagoner's journey in nature, and the primordial struggle with self it demands, which constitutes the subject matter of much of Wagoner's poetry.

Although he is a poet of unusual versatility and breadth of interest, David Wagoner is probably best known for his naturalist's eye—the lapidary precision with which he renders the rivers, rain forests, and beaches of the Pacific Northwest. More important than the acuity of his eye, however, is the life-view that underlies and informs his work—an unsentimental, animistic acceptance of and reverence for the natural world in all its forms and forces, including those at odds with the wishes of man.

Nature—impersonal, awesome in its utter unconcern for saint as well as sinner—makes a useful if humbling teacher...