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Author: David Solway
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Dec 1999
The Power Of The Pawn
by Carmine Starnino
David Solway, one of our few practicing Parnassians, has written a book of poems about chess. It would be hard to find a less populist subject for poetry; a game rooted in the combative grit of moments like “White plays Queen to Rook” doesn’t sound like an especially accessible resource for song. And like chess, Solway’s own poetry can be said to suffer a similar reputation for cerebral severity—a reputation that, for many, has chilled their affection for his work. Read more...
| NovDec 2001
Lessening Canada's Youth. Liberal Arts Studies in Jeopardy
by Harold Hoefle
Graduate
Capitulate
Suffocate
ùgraffito sprayed on concrete walk outside McGill's Leacock Building, May 2001
In his third book on education and culture, David Solway again attacks our technophiliac society and government policies bent on "accomplishing our docility and servitude. Read more...
| AprMay 2004
 | Director's Cut
by David Solway
Porcupine's Quill $19.95 Paperback
ISBN: 0889842728
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A Review of: DirectorÆs Cut
by Steven Laird
"If literature is not a responsible activity, then action is the only
course." "I believe in culture as form not spirit." Both of these
quotes are from Yukio Mishima, the Japanese novelist who in despair
over his nation's postwar loss of traditional culture, tried to incite
a military coup. It failed, and he committed ritual suicide. Although
it's an unfortunate association to make-few writers would want to be
linked with an imperialist and fanatic like Mishima-these two quotes
seem to provide a good framework for David Solway's recent books,
Director's Cut (essays on poetry), and Franklin's Passage (poetry). He
... Read more...
| AprMay 2004
 | Franklin's Passage
by David Solway
McGill-Queens University Press $16.95 Paperback
ISBN: 0773526838
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A Review of: FranklinÆs Passage
by Steven Laird
David Solway is often considered an artifact of an old Empire who,
like some samurai in postwar Japan, covers his head with a white fan
when obliged to walk under electric power lines as a protest against
the abomination. His point is simple: he longs for, and in rare
moments finds, a poetry that, to borrow from Louis Dudek, remains "an
awakening/A pleasure in the morning light" a poetry that redeems
debased words "to give back those old whores their virginity." As
Solway writes, "it is possible [in our poetry] to speak candidly,
engage the reader directly and at the same time lace up a poem with
... Read more...
| Nov 2005
The Polykaravis of David Solway
by Amanda Jernigan
Regular readers of Books in Canada will remember that in October of 1999, this journal ran a feature on the enigmatic Greek fisherman-poet Andreas Karavis. The feature comprised an interview with Karavis, conducted by Anna Zoumi of Elladas magazine, a gathering of Karavis' poems translated from the Greek by David Solway, and an essay by Solway on Karavis' oeuvre. Read more...
| JanFeb 2006
Two Little Windows
by Matthew J. Trafford
Bearing the requisite fleur-de-lis on its cover and title pages, David Solway's Demilunes is intended to give readers a glimpse into the "unique phenomenon of QuTbTcois poetry and culture." These "little windows" reveal widely disparate interiors as the reader peers into QuTbec's "harsh and sustaining" landscape, fecund and complicated history, passionate devotion to its religious heritage, and luridly secular sensuality. Read more...
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