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.

 

 

 

"Age" by Robert Creeley

 

Most explicit—
the sense of trap

as a narrowing
cone one's got

stuck into and
any movement

forward simply
wedges once more—

but where
or quite when,

even with whom,
since now there is no one

quite with you—Quite? Quiet?
English expression: Quait?

Language of singular
impedance? A dance? An

involuntary gesture to
others not there? What's

wrong here? How
reach out to the

other side all
others live on as

now you see the
two doctors, behind

you, in mind's eye,
probe into your anus,

or ass, or bottom,
behind you, the roto-

rooter-like device
sees all up, concludes

"like a worn-out inner tube,"
"old," prose prolapsed, person's

problems won't do, must
cut into, cut out . . .

The world is a round but
diminishing ball, a spherical

ice cube, a dusty
joke, a fading,

faint echo of its
former self but remembers,

sometimes, its past, sees
friends, places, reflections,

talks to itself in a fond,
judgemental murmur,

alone at last.
I stood so close

to you I could have
reached out and

touched you just
as you turned

over and began to
snore not unattractively,

no, never less than
attractively, my love,

my love—but in this
curiously glowing dark, this

finite emptiness, you, you, you
are crucial, hear the

whimpering back of
the talk, the approaching

fears when I may
cease to be me, all

lost or rather lumped
here in a retrograded,

dislocating, imploding
self, a uselessness

talks, even if finally to no one,
talks and talks.

“Affirmation” by Donald Hall

 

To grow old is to lose everything.

Aging, everybody knows it.

Even when we are young,

we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads

when a grandfather dies.

Then we row for years on the midsummer

pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,

that began without harm, scatters

into debris on the shore,

and a friend from school drops

cold on a rocky strand.

If a new love carries us

past middle age, our wife will die

at her strongest and most beautiful.

New women come and go. All go.

The pretty lover who announces

that she is temporary

is temporary. The bold woman,

middle-aged against our old age,

sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand.

Another friend of decades estranges himself

in words that pollute thirty years.

Let us stifle under mud at the pond's edge

and affirm that it is fitting

and delicious to lose everything.

"When You Are Old" by W.B. Yeats

 

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

"Growing Old" by Matthew Arnold

 

2024

What is it to grow old?

Is it to lose the glory of the form,

The luster of the eye?

Is it for beauty to forego her wreath?

—Yes, but not this alone.

Is it to feel our strength—

Not our bloom only, but our strength—decay?

Is it to feel each limb

Grow stiffer, every function less exact,

Each nerve more loosely strung?

Yes, this, and more; but not

Ah, ’tis not what in youth we dreamed ’twould be!

’Tis not to have our life

Mellowed and softened as with sunset glow,

A golden day’s decline.

’Tis not to see the world

As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes,

And heart profoundly stirred;

And weep, and feel the fullness of the past,

The years that are no more.

It is to spend long days

And not once feel that we were ever young;

It is to add, immured

In the hot prison of the present, month

To month with weary pain.

It is to suffer this,

And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel.

Deep in our hidden heart

Festers the dull remembrance of a change,

But no emotion—none.

It is—last stage of all—

When we are frozen up within, and quite

The phantom of ourselves,

To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost

Which blamed the living man.

"The Bean Eaters" by Gwendolyn Brooks

 

They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.
Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,
Tin flatware.

Two who are Mostly Good.
Two who have lived their day,
But keep on putting on their clothes
And putting things away.

And remembering . . .
Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that
          is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths,
          tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.