Voice in Louis Dudek’s Continuation, "in the most amazing fragmentary way"

 

Montreal, 1920s

Even in 1965, when I began writing poetry, I knew I had to find my voice; finding my voice lead me to eventually write real poems. Louis Dudek found his voice in poetry in Continuation:

I feel that in Continuation this is my voice, this is my true voice in poetry. It’s the personal voice that at age fifteen, or even earlier, I already had, and therefore I worked all my life to record on the page. That was the breathless adventure...I think my discovery of myself, gradually, through thinking and through a sort of philosophical monologue, tossing about the life questions, comes together finally, so that in Continuation II I am where I am supposed to be.                                                    (Louise Schrier interview, 51)

Epigrams preoccupied Dudek’s last forty years. The epigram gave Dudek the key to writing Continuation; the composition of Continuation is based on two breakthroughs: Dudek’s discovery of epigrams which lead to Dudek’s discovery of his voice in poetry.

In his Notebooks 1960 – 1994 (The Golden Dog Press, Ottawa, 1994), Dudek writes, “The great poems tend to be great expository statement. And each such poem is a central poem for the poet in question, containing the core of his vision and thought.” (Notebooks, 29) That’s what is in Continuation, Dudek’s “vision and thought.”

Louis Dudek writes that his “breakthrough” in discovering his voice in poetry came about when he was writing En México (1958). What caused this “breakthrough”—this discovery of voice—in Dudek’s writing? There was the cathartic journey to Mexico, to escape the “dejection” that he felt at home, caused by his conflicted situation in life, and to resolve an inner conflict. Going to Mexico is Dudek’s descent to the underworld, to a place where the unconscious mind is never far from the surface of consciousness and daily life. That’s where he discovered his voice; that’s where the second half of his life, from 1956 on, is born.

Let’s read some excerpts of Laurence Hutchman’s interview with Dudek on 25 June 1992:

 I suppose I do [that is, Dudek considers Continuation his best work] because it is the most completely worked out, a case of finding a voice for myself in the poetry. I explain that in the interview with Louise Schrier in Zymergy 8. In Continuation I and Continuation II, I at last found a voice where I could say exactly what I want to say, and everything I want to say, in the most amazing fragmentary way. (Hutchman, 103)

 ...you have to take risks in poetry. What is poetry trying to do on the page? It’s trying to represent the poet’s thought. If that’s what it’s trying to do, then ultimately you have to create a fictitious form that is doing that. Not one that is spurious, but the actual thought with all its fragmentary wayward digressions. And yet, if you read Continuation I and II, you find that it’s really not digressing so very much. It’s actually obsessively concerned with only one kind of subject. (Hutchman, 104) 

The process is the internal monologue, only that part of it in the mind which deals with this question, which is poetry. But it’s as if you were listening to me thinking as if it were recorded. (Hutchman, 104)

En México is the beginning in the transformation of Dudek’s poetry:

 ...I think it was in 1956—I went to Mexico to write En México, and there’s a great deal of dejection underlying that poem and that whole period of my poetry. (Schrier, 46)

...the poem En México is fascinating in the way it got the form it has... I wrote down lines of poetry fragments as they came, and these later became the poem. This method is something you will find developing gradually in my poetry... (Schrier, 47)

Here is the important passage in the Schrier interview regarding Dudek’s discovery of voice:

Now, from the time when I was, say, about eight or ten years old, I can remember a mode of feeling and consciousness that was all my own, which I knew was the way I saw things or felt things. Not that I had any idea of the importance of this, it’s just that I remember it. But, ultimately, the purpose must be to take that consciousness, which is always you, which is continuous and perhaps enriching itself with experience, and find a way of putting it down on paper. So essentially the form is the truth of your being: it must correspond to what actually is happening in the human mind. (Schrier, 47)

 Dudek to Schrier:

...in Mexico I just collected lines, sometimes two or three lines...and wrote them on scraps of paper...They were lines and passages in no particular order...There was no sequence, no form...it’s what happened in Mexico actually. I arranged the poem right here on the table, in what looked like an emerging form. And then I typed it, and I moved things when I needed to, until I got a damn good poem out of it. (Schrier, 47-48)

Dudek in interview with Schrier:

I would say that throughout life one is looking for an adequate way of saying certain things or finding a form in poetry. And one of the best things to study in my poetry would be how from the first beginnings, from certain early poems, through Europe, through En México, “Lac En Coeur”, and so on, I have been groping for a form, that becomes realized in Atlantis, and then proceeds on to Continuation II. That is to say, I believe, I want to talk truly to myself, or think for myself, though it is also a poem for other people of course. (Schrier, 50)

The form is also present in Atlantis but only fully realized in Continuation I. The questions is how was Continuation “assembled”? Because of its fragmentary nature it lends itself to a random assemblage, cutting up the various epigrams and fragments of poems, putting them in a hat and the first pulled out of the hat is the first in the poem. This roughly corresponds to the way William Burroughs, or the Dadaists, would have created the poem. This is also how I would have done it, randomly, with a Zen-like belief in the inherent meaningfulness found in random selection. But I am not convinced that Dudek would have trusted this method for his own writing, I suspect that he carefully pieced together bits and pieces of poems, fragments, into an “intelligent but unintelligible” poem.

En México, a book length poem published in 1956, is Dudek’s journey into himself, it is the exploration of the subconscious mind, the shadow, the inner man in a period of flux and searching. Mexico represents a place where the division between life and death is not as hidden or blurred as it is in Canada and The United States of America. In Mexico life and death are more the surface of things than in the United States and Canada, death is not hidden, it is not under layers of cultural preconceptions; for instance, I am editing this on the Mexican "Day of the Dead"; our Halloween has little psychological meaning.

Dudek refers to travel in his poetry, we can see this in the titles of his work: Europe, En México, and even Atlantis. But he is also someone who said that despite these books he never really liked to travel, and he didn’t travel much in his life. Instead, he lived most of his life in Montreal and he taught at McGill University for over thirty years. Even Atlantis isn’t truly a “travel” poem, it is a poem of spiritual discovery. It may be that part of “voice” in poetry comes from involvement with living in a specific geographical place for much of one’s life, or positing it a location as one’s psychic or spiritual home. Williams had Paterson; Zukofsky had Brooklyn; and Olson had Gloucester; I mention these because they are book length poems like Louis Dudek's Continuation. For some poets voice requires commitment to place and a need to make something new, a need to understand what this life we lead is all about.

Dudek writes: 

All writing is distillation, from the life to the work, but poetry especially is a distillation: out of much verbiage and stupidity, to refine an image of the seraphic sage; or more simply, to find a voice, lost in the clutter and noise of existence, which speaks with perfect clarity, with simplicity, out of the true self. (Dudek, 1983)

Voice is a vehicle for the content of poetry, but it is also inseparable from poetry; content expands when an authentic voice is discovered. Voice is not style, style changes but voice is the expression of the inner, psychological dimension of the poet; voice is the expression of psyche. The expression of voice changes just as our actual voice changes with age, but once an authentic voice is discovered then voice will remain authentic to the poet, no matter what the poet is saying.

November 2012 – June • Montreal

Revised October 2024

 

Preface, The Green Archetypal Field of Poetry: on poetry, poets, and psyche

 

Preface

 

 

T

he Green Archetypal Field of Poetry: on poetry, poets, and psyche is a collection of essays and short statements on poetry and poetics. This book complements my previous book, A Poet’s Journey: on poetry and what it means to be a poet (2019) also published by Ekstasis Editions. I’ve spent many years in the solitary work of writing poems and thinking about poetry; this book summarizes, explains, and enlarges on that subject. The book is divided into three sections; they are: ideas about poetry and writing poetry; a discussion of several Canadian poets, including F.R. Scott, A.J.M. Smith, Louis Dudek, and the poets I knew from the early days at Véhicule Art Gallery; and shamanism, psyche, or soul in poetry.

 

1          H.W. Garrod in his book, Poetry and the Criticism of Life (1931), writes that it was Seneca “who first said, what Ben Jonson and many others have said after him, that the critic of poetry must be himself a poet.” There is a tradition of poets writing about poetry; Louis Dudek’s writing is full of a contagious enthusiasm for poetry; Irving Layton wrote with bravado about the importance of poetry in Waiting for the Messiah (1985), and there are important statements on poetry in the prefaces of some of his books. Three other books of essays and commentaries on poetry need to be mentioned: co-edited by Louis Dudek and Michael Gnarowski, The Making of Modern Poetry in Canada (1967); An English Canadian Poetics (2009) edited by Robert Hogg; and On Poetry and Poets, Selected Essays of A.J.M. Smith (1977). I also recommend George Whalley’s extraordinary Poetic Process, an essay on poetics (1967).

 

2          In Canada we rarely celebrate our poets, I refer to poets of previous generations; even poets who died only five or ten years ago seem to have never existed judging by their absence from our cultural or daily life, or their being mentioned for their poetry, or their poetry being quoted. We don’t name bridges or airports after our poets, that’s reserved for dead politicians no matter how dubious their contribution to our national life. This collective amnesia does not augur well for our future; if we can't even remember a few dead poets who helped define what Canada means, then what kind of a country will we end up having?    

 

3          What are the perennial qualities of poetry? There is the dichotomy between two approaches to poetry, two types of poets, Apollonian and Dionysian, classical and romantic, formal and informal, cosmopolitan and nativist. No matter which group of poets one falls into one of the things that makes for great poetry is if the poet has found his or her authentic voice: has the poet written something that is true to their inner being and is insightful of the human condition; and the corollary of this: does the poem move us emotionally, spiritually, or intellectually? This is the type of poetry that interests me; these perennial qualities make for great poetry.

 

4          My approach to poetry has always been intuitive. Intuitive people know that intuition gives us knowing but without proof, while intellectual knowledge is substantive but often lacks the insight and originality of intuition. When intuition precedes intellectual understanding, as it does, then it is necessary to find evidence for one’s intuitions. Most of my insights into poetry—for instance, and I’m obviously not the first to say it, that poetry is the voice of the human soul—originated intuitively. In this book I am trying to substantiate my intuitive insights into poetry, this has helped me to better understand my thinking on poetry and, I hope, it is of interest to readers.

 

5          No real poet ever decided to be a poet, it doesn’t work that way; if it was a decision they probably didn’t last long writing poetry. I answered a call to do this work and now I ask, is there closure on this activity that has dominated my life? This book is closure for my writing about the meaning of poetry but, as for writing new poems, I don’t want to end up as some old poets do, and that is publishing perfectly written but meaningless poetry. I hope I will be long gone before that happens. Of course, there may still be a few poems to write, and a few odds and ends to write about poetry; there is no age for retirement for poets, there is just the slow act of disappearing.   

 

 

                                                                                                Stephen Morrissey

                                                                                                Montreal, Canada

                                                                                                16 November 2021

Morrissey, Stephen. The Green Archetypal Field of Poetry: on poetry, poets, and psyche. Ekstasis Editions, Victoria, 2022.

Review of The Green Archetypal Field of Poetry

Here is a link to Cynthia Coristine's review of my new book, The Green Archetypal Field of Poetry; what a terrific review for which I am very grateful!

The review can be found here, or copy and paste the following: https://poets.ca/review-the-green-archetypal-field-of-poetry-stephen-morrissey/

The Green Archetypal Field of Poetry

Here is the front and back cover of my new book, The Green Archetypal Field of Poetry, on poetry, poets, and psyche, published by Ekstasis Editions a few months ago. The book was published at the same time as Ekstasis Editions published books by Ken Norris and Endre Farkas, both of whom I've known since the mid-1970s. I thought I had reached the end of writing, now it seems I have a few more years left in me. 

Books can be ordered from Ekstasis Editions.

The Green Archetypal Field of Poetry: on poetry, poets, and psyche gathers a selection of essays and short statements on poetry by Stephen Morrissey. While best known as a poet, Morrissey’s critical writing is an important part of his literary work. In this book he writes on the legacy of Canadian poets who helped bring modernism to Canadian poetry. Morrissey’s approach to poetics reminds us of the enduring importance of Beat, Romantic, and shamanic poetics. Morrissey suggests that poems originate in what he calls the green archetypal field of poetry. This is Stephen Morrissey’s second volume on poetry and poetics, after The Poet’s Journey: on poetry and what it means to be a poet (2019).

 

Thomas D'Arcy McGee, the 150th Anniversary of his Assassination

Today, 7 April 2018, is the 150th anniversary of the assassination of Thomas D'Arcy McGee in Ottawa. Celebrations of his life and memory are at present underway in Montreal. I made this video at McGee's mausoleum in August 2013, in it I read the Gazette's report from 1868 of the assassination that took place only hours earlier. We haven't forgotten him in Montreal, he is forever remembered. 

McGill Fortnightly Review

Mark McCawley, the editor of Urban Grafitti, was in favour of online/digital magazines, I was in favour (and still am) of both, but I prefer a hard copy, on paper. This was one of the few things about which Mark and I disagreed. Online periodicals can disappear when the editor discontinues the site/periodical, and what is digital can be revised or altered in the Orwellian future. Hard copies of periodicals, kept in archives, can be researched years from now and I have done this type of research. So, for instance, two of the Montreal Group of poets (Scott and Smith) founded The McGill Fortnightly Review and it was published from 1925 to 1927; a few years later they published The McGilliad. Even today these periodicals are fascinating reading. The full run of both periodicals is available at Special Collections at McGill University or online at https://blogs.library.mcgill.ca/…/mcgill-fortnightly-review/

Review of In the Writers' Words, Conversations with Eight Poets

Laurence Hutchman on Grand Blvd near Somerled, Montreal, March 2016

                                 

Laurence Hutchman 

In the Writers' Words, Conversations with Eight Poets

Guernica Editions, Toronto, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-5507-309-1

Conversations with Eight Poets

by

Stephen Morrissey

             Laurence Hutchman's In the Writers' Words, Conversations with Eight Poets is a valuable addition to our knowledge of modernist Canadian poetry. The poets interviewed in these conversations are Ralph Gustafson, George Johnston, P.K. Page, Fred Cogswell, Louis Dudek, Al Purdy, Anne Szumigalski, and James Reaney. All eight of these poets have made important contributions to Canadian literature—they are all distinguished members of the Canadian poetry canon—and several have also contributed as translators and publishers.

            There is an easy intimacy between Laurence Hutchman and the poets he is interviewing. It feels as though we are listening in on good friends having a friendly but serious conversation on a subject about which both of them are passionate. Each interview is prefaced with a vivid and detailed description of the poet's home or place of work where the interview took place. When Hutchman is invited into Ralph Gustafson's Eastern Township's home he sits by a warm fire in late December; he describes the "chilly November morning in Saskatoon" when he rode a borrowed bicycle to interview Anne Szunigalski and entered her home where he admired paintings "everywhere on the walls, mostly done by her own family."
            Just before the interview which takes place in James Reaney's university office, Hutchman notes, "We sit on a green couch for the interview. On the wall facing us there is a painting of Reaney's, of The Nihilist Spasm Band. Above us is a picture, 'A Well Organized Athletic Meet on Centre Island, 1907 two women carrying eggs on a spoon.' Above those are topographical maps representing Grand Bend, St. Mary's and Stratford." Hutchman's awareness of the minutiae and detail of the place where the interview takes place enhances each interview that follows. In these interviews we are invited to know the human side of the eight different poets. Indeed, these conversations are an invitation for new readers to explore each poets' work.
            Scholars will find In The Writers' Words, Conversations with Eight Poets a valuable source of insight into these poets' work; recent criticism I've written on Louis Dudek's major long poem "Continuation" has been deepened by reading the interview with him. I can hear Dudek's voice—engaging and inquiring—in his discussion with Hutchman; Dudek states,

                        In Continuation 1 and Continuation 2, I at last found a voice where

                        I could say exactly what I want to say, and everything I want to say,

                        in the most amazing fragmentary way... you have to take risks in poetry.

                        What is poetry trying to do on the page? It's trying to represent the

                        poet's thought.

                        Many of us have fond memories of having met these eight poets. I remember meeting James Reaney at a League of Canadian Poets AGM in Toronto; he was wearing a tie decorated with books that I liked so much it took me a year before finding a similar tie for myself. In Edmonton, a few years ago, Mark Abley's excellent keynote address at the League's AGM was on Anne Szumigalski and it brought her life and work to a new audience. Elsewhere, I heard Fred Cogswell and Ralph Gustafson read their poems and from time to time corresponded with them. I sat and talked with Al Purdy after one of the times I heard him read. Louis Dudek, besides being my professor, was a friend until the end of his life. I remember being a first year graduate student at McGill University and walking into the English Department's staff lounge and seeing Laurence sitting discussing his own poetry with Louis Dudek. Dudek's DC Books published Hutchman's first book, Explorations (1975). George Johnston was a good friend, we both lived in rural south-western Quebec after he retired from teaching at Carleton University. In addition to many discussions on poetry George taught me the basics of the art of bee keeping which I did for many years. George and his wife Jean were both good friends and warm-hearted people, over the years of knowing them I also got to know some members of their family. During their careers all of these poets that Hutchman interviews readily made themselves available to newer poets. Reading Hutchman's conversations with them reminds me of the generosity and welcoming spirit of this modernist generation of poets, many of whom made an indelible impression on me.
                  All eight of these poets began writing and publishing during the 1930s to the1950s. Individually and collectively they made a significant contribution to Canadian poetry. P.K. Page, reminiscing about when she lived in Montreal, reminds us of poets we may have forgotten but who are still important for their role in Canadian literature, they include Patrick Anderson and John Sutherland. She also remembers with fondness Montreal poet A.M. Klein; Page says,

            ... he was only nine years older than I but he seemed to belong to a different generation. This had to do with a series of things, I think, with the fact that he was married, had children, and a law practise. He was already established as a poet... I find him a  wonderful poet and can't think why people today don't see it. But they will again.

            In his interview George Johnston discusses the literary scene back in the 1930s when he was a student and had just begun writing; Johnston states, "To tell the truth, I was hardly aware of a literary life in Toronto, except at the university. There was one intellectual sort of magazine which came out once a month..." This comment by Johnston reveals to us how far Canadian literature has progressed over the last sixty or seventy years.

            The eight poets Hutchman interviewed spent a lifetime writing poetry and thinking about poetry; theirs was a life centered on literature and poetry. The New Brunswick-based poet Fred Cogswell, who did a tremendous service for poets across Canada during his many years of running the literary small press, Fiddlehead, makes this statement on "the philosophical nature of ... poetry":

           

The particular philosophical nature of poetry is that its function is to illustrate the  qualities of the human mind that are the basis for the attitudes we have as human beings. Keep going farther than you've already gone, or you become a victim of what you've written up until that moment.

            In the interview with P.K. Page, living at the west coast edge of the continent, in Victoria, BC, a clap of thunder is heard as the interview comes to an end. PK says to Hutchman, "You're conjuring up gods that we don't normally have." This is what Hutchman does in all of these interviews. He conjures the gods of poetry. Hutchman's interviews with each of these eight poets is an intimate conversation with each individual. We hear their voice, their commitment to poetry, and their example of a life lived for poetry. Hutchman's book stays vivid and lively and brings the reader directly into the personality and writing of each of the eight poets. For anyone of any age, either scholar or reader, who is interested in the modernist poets of Canada, this book is an indispensable companion to the poets' collected works. That is part of the magic of this book.

                                                                        Stephen Morrissey

                                                                        Montreal, September 3, 2013