LOUIS DUDEK: A BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION TO HIS POETRY. Stromberg-Stein, Susan. Ottawa, Golden Dog Press, c1983. 150pp. paper, $12.95, ISBN 0-919614-50-7. Distributed by Golden Dog Press, P.O. Box 393, 409 Oxford St. East, Kemptville, Ont., K0G 1J0. CIP Grades 12 and up Reviewed by Alan Thomas Volume 14 Number 1 1986 January Graduate theses coming out of Golden Dog Press as books remind us how doubtful this practice can be: such theses are often academic in the worst sense; careful, timid, and near-sighted. Publication may not be fair to author or subject, Stromberg-Stein's MA thesis, which makes up most of this book, was no doubt a good one as presented at McGill in 1977, but it is not, as it stands, good enough for a book that will face public scrutiny. What does stand up are the interviews with contemporary poets made by the author in 1982. She is to be congratulated here on bringing out comment from the interviewees who include Leonard Cohen, Raymond Souster, and D.G. Jones. The difference between these interviews and the passages of Stromberg-Stein biography are as night and day: these are people with something to say about Dudek, a man who has occupied a leading position in the literary life of Canada for over forty years. D.G. Jones's contribution is exceptionally noteworthy, placing Dudek in relation to mid-century literary and critical movements and indicating some of the paradoxes in Dudek's committed avant-gardism and his touchstone of realism. These interviews in part justify the book, and it is regrettable that they appear crudely appended and un-indexed. (Golden Dog Press does not appear to be a good editing house.) Alan Thomas, Scarborough College, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont.