For [Louis] Dudek, as for [Matthew] Arnold, poetry is a serious search for moral truth…. Arnold could say "For poetry the idea is everything … poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the 'idea' is the fact." And Dudek after him, "… it is what you say with language that really matters." (pp. 5-6)

The poet, for Dudek, must constantly take account of life as it is being lived. He must use words only to say honestly and simply what he thinks and feels about that life, to extract its essential meaning. His function is not to make decorative verses, forge new metaphors or illustrate myths, but rather to record in words the results of his personal explorations in the various dimensions of actuality and to share with the world his search for new depths of truth and beauty in human experience. Specifically, Dudek says, the modern poet's task is...