[Waddington's language in Say Yes is close to the conventional lyric, appears fresh,] surprises with sudden illumination, touches us with her gaiety and convinces us of her gravity. Her language enlivens the dark. Acutely aware of the loss of love, of language, of a familiar world, she confronts it directly and articulates it honestly. With a possible hint from Dr. Williams she has devised a rather baroque, run-on form made up of lines of two to four feet into which the most prosaic sentences may be fitted, in a potentially endless series…. In the country, in the city, in art or in nature, everywhere the dark appears. In "Shakedown" we read:

Time like a raftered roof has shaken us down like grain or brickdust into the lowest bin of the dark world.

One poem is entitled "Swallowing darkness is swallowing dead elm trees." And swallow it Mrs. Waddington...