The Surface of Time

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.

Louis Dudek’s first volume of poems appeared in 1946, and he has been
publishing regularly ever since. Moreover, in recent years he has been
producing poems of extraordinary vigor and grace while in his ninth
decade. Like Wordsworth, who described himself as “a Teacher or
nothing,” Dudek sees poetry as a medium for saying something, and the
didactic impulse here is as strong as ever. His poetry has always been a
sly amalgam of verse and epigram, and his close study of Ezra Pound has
enabled him to master the rhythms and cadences of the free-verse poetic
line. Moreover, in his more recent verse, he has inserted an increased
lyricism that gives his poems of old age a haunting, timeless quality.

Most of the poems here are short, simple, well controlled, poignant. In
addition, the final contribution brings to a close his
“Continuation” series, which began 20 years ago with Continuation I
and was followed by Continuation II in 1988. As he explains in a
preface, four sections of “Continuation III” appeared in The Caged
Tiger (1997) “followed by ‘Bits and Pieces,’ which is really
Section 5.” The sequence reproduced here completes the series. It is
Dudek’s last, rambling, long philosophical poem, and now stands
alongside Europe, En Mexico and Atlantis as another of his major
statements.

The Japanese have an odd but charming practice of designating not only
places and art objects but also people as “National Treasures.”
Dudek’s numerous achievements as poet, shrewd critic, pioneering
publisher of little magazines and chapbooks, and tireless supporter of
young writers qualify him admirably for a Canadian equivalent. These
poems are by turn relaxed, humorous, philosophical, sometimes even
numinous; easy to read the first time, they are full of the sagesse that
rewards rereadings. An admirable late flowering at the close of an
impressive, even awesome career.