Commentary on Continuation II, Introduction

 

Of course, Continuation II  begins where Continuation I ends. Here we have twenty-one sections, each one an enlargement and development on the totality of the poem. The quotation from Baudelaire at the beginning of this second book defines Dudek’s ambition in Continuation; it is to write “a poetic prose, musical without metre and without rhymes, subtle and staccato enough to follow the lyric motions of the soul...” That is, this is a poetry of the psyche, of the poet’s soul, the poet’s meditation on what enters the field of his perception and then becomes a part of this long poem. This is Dudek’s project, not necessarily influenced by Ezra Pound but Dudek’s original vision and voice. 

 

Yes, volleying down corridors

with arms spread out and screaming,

the young have taken over

(9)

 

All of us who have taught at a post secondary level will appreciate this image! Dudek wisely deleted mentioning LSD, found in the previous text, it was a bit of an overreach and its deletion improves the poem.

-o-

 

This section begins with observations on teaching art, the modern age, The youth have given up even cursory respect for the elders, “Leaving historians who grace us with dignity/ to note/ some trivial shifts in domestic arrangements” (9); our society is portrayed as “A dying insect, twitching his legs, to keep alive” (9).

 

Then Man in the mass   group thinking

—    infantile, ferile, insane

 

with concentration camps

            (a sick inmate supported by friends

to save him from being shot

                        for not standing)

(10)

 

-o-

But always the concern for art, even with this beginning detailing some of the horrors of modern man. Note the use of the word “shining” that is prominent in Continuation III; and despite the negative comment regarding mysticism, there is a mystical sensibility in Dudek regarding writing poetry and the perceptions of one growing old. It is “art a forward urge”.

 

Art attempts to exteriorize the psyche

                        to internalize the ego —

submerge in the oldest self

 

But mysticism is regressive

and art a forward urge

 

Cruelty the inner hell

                        as action, without control

 

Yet there is also light, shining on the mind,

                        a great kindness

(11)

 

-o-

This first section ends with a prayer; Dudek is seventy-two years old when he published Continuation II; his attention is turned to several things: a world in which cruelty and war are ever-present; the changing relationship between children and adults; an unknown future; the necessity of the creative mind to penetrate the dark future.

 

Lord, let me have wings

            in my late years, when baldness comes

Open my skull to heaven like a mirror

 

Let me think nothing but

            eternal thoughts, out of that dust a gavel,

the ashes of existence

 

Make new hope possible, form future birds

            Laugh at wounds, tear all obstacles aside

and show, naked, the creative chromosomes

(13)

 -o-

Does it cohere? That’s one of the tests of poetry. How many poets, after writing some of their most significant work, ask this question? Pound. Olson? But not W.C. Williams.   

-o-

What is banal and trite has its place here, in Continuation II, unfortunately, it detracts from Continuation I; this is regrettable because it is difficult enough to string together all of these epigrams without the distraction of inferior epigrams, it makes you doubt the validity of the whole work and the reader thinks “Dudek’s lost it, the inspiration of Continuation I is lost on Continuation II”, and I think this may be the case (see note below). Continuation II is a longer book than Continuation I, and the projected Continuation III was never completed and what was published is incomplete. Continuation II is almost a separate book, it is as though Dudek is trying to find his way, his direction, in the second Continuation book. 

 -o-

Note: On writing poetry in old age

What needs to be addressed here is the affect of old age on writing poetry and on poets. There are exceptions but, as far as I can see, and what I have experienced, is that old age is the termination of writing poetry, of writing good poetry. Dispute this if you want, and I will be the first to agree with you, but my experience is that writing poetry takes energy and old people often don't have the necessary energy for this work; writing poetry takes time, to let the unconscious transform experience and thought into poetry. The old, in my experience, are concerned with the ending of life and what leads up to this: this is what they talk about: loss of health, loss of family and friends, loss of one's old position in society, sickness and death. There are significant exceptions to this but my impression is that old age is of such magnitude that concern with it takes over one's life. This may account for Dudek's Continuation declining as it did.

Written in 2012; revised: October-November 2024 and January 2026. 

Note: I had planned to return to Continuation II and complete this project but, as they say, "life got in the way". I have some notes on "Continuation III” and will publish them here, but so far, they, too, are incomplete. It is still a worthwhile task, the textual analysis and discussion of Dudek's Continuation books. Continuation is a doorway into many discussions. As it is, Continuation doesn't cohere; but, if the first two books and the completed work in Book Three were published as a single book, or even just Book Three published as a single book, or even just put this work online, perhaps that would let readers see the significance of the work as a whole, completed, and not just disparate writings.

 

 

 

Deleted Notes

 

 “The Eviction” by Ray Grathwol, 1946

Notes: 

1. Allen Ginsberg referred to line breaks in poetry as a form of composition that followed the poet's breath; "inspiration" is breathing in spirit while "expiration" refers to breathing out of spirit or, alternatively, of dying; as an aside, "orgasm" in French is referred to as "la petite mort", a little death, to breathing out, a brief loss of consciousness; as we know, poetry doesn't have this affect on people. Expiration isn't a term in poetry, but inspiration can refer to being inspired. 

2. The title of my first book, The Trees of Unknowing (1978), is derivative of The Cloud of Unknowing, a medieval spiritual text on knowing God.

3. Soul resides in you, is always present in you. Poetry is mapping the soul, it is a cartography of the soul. Spirit is outside of you, you breath in spirit, you are inspired. Where does spirit come from? It could be that spirit refers to the Holy Spirit, and this suggests a divine connection between writing poetry, being inspired, and what is the numinous in the world.

4. Poetry (and literature) is insightful into the human condition; many people read Mary Oliver and Billy Collins, their poetry is accessible to most people; intellectuals are critical of both Billy Collins and Mary Oliver but these two poets are popular and speak to the average person. Patti Smith and Jim Morrison, or Arthur Rimbaud and Walt Whitman, are shamans of poetry, their poetry is directed to the spiritual, the inspired, and revelation. Patti Smith and Jim Morrison were influenced by Rimbaud, for instance Patti Smith's song "Radio Ethiopia" and many of Jim Morrison's songs have a shamanistic aspect, it is "to disorder the mind"; read the very young Jim Morrison's  correspondence with Wallace Fowlie, the preeminent translator of Rimbaud's poetry, (see Fowlie's Rimbaud and Jim Morrison, the Rebel as Poet [1994]).

5. The established, mainstream, churches don't give an experience of the numinous except, possibly, during communion, the eucharist; otherwise, I am sorry to say, the mainstream churches are mostly surviving on past glories, on what used to be, and promoting liberal social causes. No wonder some average people who are interested in religion, and a religious experience, have moved on to evangelical churches that give an emotional experience, an experience of the divine, these churches are often identified with a conservative ideology; the mainstream churches are (except for Catholicism) mostly identified with left wing ideologies. Most people are not intellectuals, they want a religious experience and this happens in the mainstream churches during Holy Communion; the evangelical churches emphasize a religious experience, singing, praising, and being one with the divine. 

6. Another aspect of writing a poem is assembling the poem from disparate sentences and phrases one has written. You don't have to write a poem in one sitting, you can go back and piece together sentences that were seemingly dictated to you, or were written by you out of inspiration, and then assemble these into a poem. But whatever one’s approach to writing poetry, whether being inspired, or copying down what was dictated, or automatic writing, or just writing, the main thing is to make an authentic poem, one that is emotionally moving, insightful for the reader, or aesthetically pleasing; writing poetry is done for the joy of making something new and being creative. I use the word “making” because that is the root meaning of the word "poetry".

How do we write a poem?

 

There are at least three approaches to writing poetry. There is writing poetry as though it is prose, you know what you are going to write, or you discover what you are writing in the act of writing, and then do the writing; in this the poet is getting down on paper whatever it is he or she wants to write and possibly following a defined form, narrative or lyric, sonnet, ode, ballad, counting syllables, or most probably free verse. There is nothing philosophical or extraordinary in this down-to-earth approach to writing. This is the way most poets write poetry; we could stop here and say that writing poetry is writing and nothing more. But some poets see more to writing than this and there are two other approaches to writing poetry. The approach to writing is involved with the poet’s approach to poetry. 

The first of these two approaches to writing poetry is that the poet needs to be inspired. John Keats writes, in his "Axioms of Poetry", that real poetry comes naturally, "as leaves to a tree”, it is that poetry should be written spontaneously. This is the approach of poets like Allen Ginsberg and it was Ginsberg, after a reading in Montreal in 1969, who told me of following breath when writing; poetry is related to breath, and line breaks should conform to breath; this relates to “inspiration", "in-spiring", breathing in spirit, breathing out the poem, and composing according to breaths as written on the page, as a form of composition, how the poem appears on the page is how it is to be read. As well, to “in-spire" is to, literally, breathe in spirit; this isn't soul that is being referred to but spirit, soul is not spirit; spirit comes to you when you are inspired, it is external to you, it enters you from the outside world. The idea that inspiration is spirit breathed in by the poet doesn't need Ginsberg's concept of composition following breath, each can stand alone. 

Here is Google's "AI Overview" of the word "inspiration":

The word "inspiration" comes from Latin inspirare (to breathe into), combining in- (in) and spirare (to breathe), meaning to "blow into" or "breathe upon". It entered English via Old French around the 1300s, initially meaning divine influence, especially for scripture, linking to the idea of God "breathing life" or words into people. This root connects to "spirit" (breath/soul) and evolved from a divine concept to a more secular idea of creative or emotional motivation.

We live in a society that is secular, so these ideas of a spiritual or divine connection to poetry are alien to most people, including many poets. Matthew Arnold said "the strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious poetry" and "...what passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry"; for some, poetry is their religion, but we don't worship poets, we don’t worship poems, but we do know the valuable insight literature offers readers, insights that were once the message of organized religion and can now be discovered in literature. We want to read poetry that is significant and meaningful--whether spiritually, emotionally, or intellectually--we like poetry and literature that explains or illuminates something about human experience, that helps us to understand life, that affirms life, for this reason T.S. Eliot and W.B. Yeats, and Rilke, are more significant as poets than Ezra Pound and Charles Olson who, for many readers, are obscure and "do not cohere". 

Rimbaud and Jim Morrison

It is also possible to understand writing poetry as "dictation". Inspiration and dictation in writing poetry are closely associated but different; however, in both approaches one never censors what the poem is saying; never censor oneself despite one’s fear of expressing something important, never censor oneself whether for personal or some other reason. We've seen what inspiration means; dictation means listening for the poem then writing it down. Indeed, it may be quibbling, or a minor difference, to differentiate between inspiration and dictation because they are similar, but dictation is not necessarily inspired writing, dictation it is more about listening or being dictated to, it is related to spontaneous writing, riffing on words or a phrase, going where the poem, the words, take you, listening as though the poet is an outsider to what the poem is saying. 

Poetry is one of the few places in our desacralized society where we can talk about inspiration, spirit, soul, the mystery of life, and the divine. This doesn't mean referring to traditional aspects of organized religion, it means understanding some aspect of the human condition. Years ago I read a biography of George Fox, the founder of the Quaker movement; here is the Google AI Overview on George Fox:

George Fox (1624–1691) was the English founder of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), a movement born from his spiritual experiences emphasizing an "Inner Light" or direct connection with God, rejecting formal clergy and rituals in favor of inner guidance and silent worship, establishing principles like equality, pacifism, and plainness that shaped Quaker beliefs and practices despite persecution.

A Quaker meeting, a religious service, is held in silence until someone feels moved by God to speak, not in "tongues", but in plain English, inspired by the divine, and this is similar to what we do when writing poetry. I spent many years sitting most evenings and writing whatever came to me, with no preconceived ideas as to what to write, but writing without prior thought. For some poets writing poetry requires waiting for the poem to make itself known and this approach may or may not produce real poems. After many years of writing, not just learning the "craft" ("The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne", as Chaucer wrote in "The Parliament of Fowls") opening consciousness to poetry, I wrote a real poem, and then several real poems, and these poems are in my first book The Trees of Unknowing (1978). One of the signs of writing a "real poem" is that one can stand behind this poem for years after writing it, not just for days or a few months; it is the beginning of one's lifetime body of work. Sitting, waiting, and listening for the divine, is a foundational aspect of Quakerism; it is also an approach to writing poetry. Quakers "quaked", trembled, they experienced a physical manifestation of being moved by God, by the Holy Spirit; their lives were illuminated with an inner light. Dictation doesn't mean hearing a voice speaking to you, it is the delay between the act of writing and the words that are given to you; in my experience there is a momentary gap--perhaps a millisecond--between what is "dictated" and what is written down. I think we can all agree on the importance of not censoring what we write if we want to write real poems, not second hand and contrived poems. The message is: follow where the poem takes you and one day you will possibly arrive at a real poem.                                                             

Rabbit Returned

The days are getting longer by about a minute a day, so when we get home around 4:30 p.m. it is still a little bright outside, it isn't dark as it was on Christmas Day. Anyhow, we arrive home and I go outside and leave a carrot, cut into pieces, for the rabbit. Yesterday I noticed the rabbit is leaving little gifts, rabbit poops, where I leave the carrot, and the rabbit gave me a good laugh over this. I am not certain he even liked carrots when I first left them for him, but now he visits everyday for his carrot snack. Yesterday, he arrived within minutes of my leaving his snack; after I left his carrot beside the bird bath, he appeared as though he had been waiting for me to leave the carrot and go away. This rabbit brings me a lot of happiness, now we both stand by the window looking outside at the rabbit as he eats the carrots that are left for him. Video online 04 January 2026.

Maria-Louise von Franz on solving our problems

               

Like all of us, I have the impression that our culture and civilization is in a final stage, that it has entered a stage of decay. I believe that either we shall find a renewal, or else it is the end. And I can only see this renewal coming out of what Jung discovered, namely in our making positive contact with the creative source of the unconscious and with dreams. These are our roots. A tree can only renew itself through its roots.

For this reason my message is to urge everyone to turn back to these inner psychic roots because that’s where the only constructive suggestions are to be found — how to come to grips with our enormous dilemmas: the atom bomb, overpopulation. This is the best way of solving all our problems which appear insoluble.                                                             

                             --Marie-Louise von Franz, 1987

"Marriage" by Gregory Corso

Should I get married? Should I be Good?

Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and faustaus hood?
Don’t take her to movies but to cemeteries
tell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets
then desire her and kiss her and all the preliminaries
and she going just so far and I understanding why
not getting angry saying You must feel! It’s beautiful to feel!
Instead take her in my arms lean against an old crooked tombstone
and woo her the entire night the constellations in the sky—

When she introduces me to her parents
back straightened, hair finally combed, strangled by a tie,
should I sit knees together on their 3rd degree sofa
and not ask Where’s the bathroom?
How else to feel other than I am,
often thinking Flash Gordon soap—
O how terrible it must be for a young man
seated before a family and the family thinking
We never saw him before! He wants our Mary Lou!
After tea and homemade cookies they ask What do you do for a living?
Should I tell them? Would they like me then?
Say All right get married, we’re losing a daughter
but we’re gaining a son—
And should I then ask Where’s the bathroom?

O God, and the wedding! All her family and her friends
and only a handful of mine all scroungy and bearded
just waiting to get at the drinks and food—
And the priest! He looking at me as if I masturbated
asking me Do you take this woman for your lawful wedded wife?
And I trembling what to say say Pie Glue!
I kiss the bride all those corny men slapping me on the back
She’s all yours, boy! Ha-ha-ha!
And in their eyes you could see some obscene honeymoon going on—

then all that absurd rice and clanky cans and shoes
Niagara Falls! Hordes of us! Husbands! Wives! Flowers! Chocolates!
All streaming into cozy hotels
All going to do the same thing tonight
The indifferent clerk he knowing what was going to happen
The lobby zombies they knowing what
The whistling elevator man he knowing
The winking bellboy knowing
Everybody knowing! I’d be almost inclined not to do anything!
Stay up all night! Stare that hotel clerk in the eye!
Screaming: I deny honeymoon! I deny honeymoon!
running rampant into those almost climatic suites
yelling Radio belly! Cat shovel!
O I’d live in Niagara forever! in a dark cave beneath the Falls
I’d sit there the Mad Honeymooner devising ways to break marriages, a scourge of bigamy a saint of divorce—

But I should get married I should be good
How nice it’d be to come home to her
and sit by the fireplace and she in the kitchen
aproned young and lovely wanting my baby
and so happy about me she burns the roast beef
and comes crying to me and I get up from my big papa chair
saying Christmas teeth! Radiant brains! Apple deaf!
God what a husband I’d make! Yes, I should get married!
So much to do! like sneaking into Mr Jones’ house late at night
and cover his golf clubs with 1920 Norwegian books
Like hanging a picture of Rimbaud on the lawnmower
like pasting Tannu Tuva postage stamps all over the picket fence
like when Mrs Kindhead comes to collect for the Community Chest
grab her and tell her There are unfavorable omens in the sky!
And when the mayor comes to get my vote tell him
When are you going to stop people killing whales!
And when the milkman comes leave him a note in the bottle
Penguin dust, bring me penguin dust, I want penguin dust—

Yet if I should get married and it’s Connecticut and snow
and she gives birth to a child and I am sleepless, worn,
up for nights, head bowed against a quiet window, the past behind me,
finding myself in the most common of situations a trembling man
knowledged with responsibility not twig-smear not Roman coin soup—
O what would that be like!
Surely I’d give it for a nipple a rubber Tacitus
For a rattle bag of broken Bach records
Tack Della Francesca all over its crib
Sew the Greek alphabet on its bib
And build for its playpen a roofless Parthenon

No, I doubt I’d be that kind of father
not rural not snow no quiet window
but hot smelly New York City
seven flights up, roaches and rats in the walls
a fat Reichian wife screeching over potatoes Get a job!
And five nose running brats in love with Batman
And the neighbors all toothless and dry haired
like those hag masses of the 18th century
all wanting to come in and watch TV
The landlord wants his rent
Grocery store Blue Cross Gas & Electric Knights of Columbus
Impossible to lie back and dream Telephone snow, ghost parking–
No! I should not get married and I should never get married!
But—imagine if I were to marry a beautiful sophisticated woman
tall and pale wearing an elegant black dress and long black gloves
holding a cigarette holder in one hand and highball in the other
and we lived high up a penthouse with a huge window
from which we could see all of New York and even farther on clearer days
No I can’t imagine myself married to that pleasant prison dream—

O but what about love? I forget love
not that I am incapable of love
it’s just that I see love as odd as wearing shoes—
I never wanted to marry a girl who was like my mother
And Ingrid Bergman was always impossible
And there’s maybe a girl now but she’s already married
And I don’t like men and—
but there’s got to be somebody!
Because what if I’m 60 years old and not married,
all alone in furnished room with pee stains on my underwear
and everybody else is married! All in the universe married but me!

Ah, yet well I know that were a woman possible as I am possible
then marriage would be possible—
Like SHE in her lonely alien gaud waiting her Egyptian lover
so I wait—bereft of 2,000 years and the bath of life.

Source: Corso, Gregory.  The Happy Birthday of Death. New York: New Directions Publishing, 1960

"Thanks" by W.S. Merwin

 

W.S. Merwin

Listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you

we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings

we are running out of the glass rooms

with our mouths full of food to look at the sky

and say thank you

we are standing by the water thanking it

standing by the windows looking out

in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging

after funerals we are saying thank you

after the news of the dead

whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you

in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators

remembering wars and the police at the door

and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you

in the banks we are saying thank you

in the faces of the officials and the rich

and of all who will never change

we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us

taking our feelings we are saying thank you

with the forests falling faster than the minutes

of our lives we are saying thank you

with the words going out like cells of a brain

with the cities growing over us

we are saying thank you faster and faster

with nobody listening we are saying thank you

thank you we are saying and waving

dark though it is