Continuation II

Ian Calder is a Toronto-based free-lance writer.

In this second collection of brief, rapid, hard-hitting verse, Dudek
attacks the institutions of modern society. He rails against
“politics, doctrine, religion / in which all personal madness / is
subject to external check”; for Dudek, personal madness equals
individual creativity. The media and mass communication become a focus
for his scorn: “Like the modern newspaper, society’s shit-pot / A
hodge-podge of spurious knowledge / and misinformation.” He
rhetorically poses the question, “What is it / makes life so
interesting? / Lack of purpose, lack of message?”; then draws his
conclusion: “Like poems, completely aimless / yet completely
necessary.”

There are times when Dudek becomes didactic and heavy-handed in his
epigrams. The frequency of puns and the quoted truisms weaken his work.
But when he rises above the need to reveal his wit and learning, he
creates lines that live: “Hear the birds going like lemon squeezers, /
in trees of candy-floss — / to the dim rhythm of remembered dreams.”

Read at one sitting, this collection could overwhelm the senses. (As at
any banquet, it is better to select, taste, and digest an individual
dish.) Each of the twenty units of Continuation II deserves to be
savored.