Mr. Dudek is introverted and emotional: what takes fresh and novel shape in his poetry is a sensuous reaction. In The Transparent Sea …, a retrospective collection, the best pieces are songs conveying an immediate mood, such as the one beginning "A bird who sits over my door"; or studies in the movement and sound of words, like "Tree in a Snowstorm"; or ideas that suddenly twist round into paradoxes, like the admirable opening poem on the pineal gland, or his comparison of the universe to a watch which makes religion a search "for larger regions of clockwise justice"; or quick vivid sketches like "Late Winter" or "Lines for a Bamboo Stick," the latter with an Oriental reference; or a study of swift movement, like his picture of a little girl skipping called "The Child."

One of his favourite adjectives is "wet," and some of his best poems have...