Louis Dudek

A passionate believer in the power of artâand especially poetryâto influence and critique contemporary culture, Louis Dudek devoted much of his life to shaping the Canadian literary scene through his meditative and experimental poems as well as his work in publishing and teaching. All These Roads: The Poetry of Louis Dudek brings together thirty-five of Dudek's poems written over the course of his sixty-year career. Much of Dudek's poetry is about the practice of art, with comment on the way the craft of poetry is mediated by such factors as university classes, public readings, reviews, commercial presses, and academic conferences. The poems in this selectionâwitty satires, short lyrics, and long sequencesâreflect self-consciously on the relationship between art and life and will draw readers into the dramatic mid-century literary and cultural debates in which Dudek was an important participant. Karis Shearer's introduction provides an overview of Dudek's prolific career as poet, professor, editor, publisher, and critic, and considers the ways in which Dudek's functional poems help, both formally and thematically, to carry out the tasks associated with those roles. Comparing Dudek's reception to that of NourbeSe Philip, Marilyn Dumont, and Roy Miki, Frank Davey's afterword locates Dudek in a pre-1980s version of multiculturalism that is more complex than many critics would have it. According to Davey, Dudek broadened the limits on the possible range and type of poetry for subsequent generations of Canadian writers.

When Dudek selected and arranged the poems in this book he intended this to be the "definitive" collection of his poems. This contains selections from 20 of his previous book between 1944 and 1997. Louis Dudek … prolific poet, critic and literary activist … has had a long and distinguished career as one of Canada’s major writers. Louis Dudek is a poet, editor, teacher, publisher, translator, and critic. His parents emigrated from Poland before WWII, and Dudek grew up in the French East End of Montreal. He graduated from McGill in 1939, and then obtained his PhD from Columbia University in New York. In 1944 he was included in a collection entitled Unit of Five, which included the work of Raymond Souster, PK Page, James Wreford and Ronald Humbleton who served as editor. In 1946, Dudek published his first solo collection, East of the City, setting the work in his childhood. In 1951, he joined the faculty of McGill, lecturing in modern poetry. He remained on faculty as Greenshields Professor of English until 1984, when he became Professor Emeritus. As a critic, teacher and theoretician, Dudek influenced the teaching of Canadian poetry in most schoolsand universities. As a publisher, critic and mentor of many poets, he directly influenced the lives and careers of numerous authors and has had a profound effect on the evolution of Canadian literature.

Louis Dudek's contribution to Canadian literature has been enormous. He has been called Canada's first man of letters, in the tradition of Arnold and Pound. Infinite Worlds is a major selection of Dudek's work, edited by poet and teacher Robin Blaser. Selections have been drawn from 15 books and one journal spanning 42 years.