Solway argues in this feisty and polemical book that the time has arrived to take stock and engage passionately with our literature, and especially our poetry, if it is ever to be rescued from the swamp of second-ratedness into which it has descended. He contends that almost all of the poetry (and much of the fiction) being written in Canada these days is turgid, spurious and pedestrian, the result of two highly questionable developments: the proliferation of Creative Writing departments in universities throughout the country, and a largely subsidized literature industry, abetted by a press of cousinly critics and reviewers, intended to construct a patchwork national psyche, create a sense of ideological cohesion and glorify the tribe. In consequence of this we have sponsored a coterie of underachieving overproducers and proceeded to collude in their diffusion by virtue of our silent complicity or our chauvinism. Solway believes that we are on the whole far too nice, far too politically correct and, in a word, far too `Canadian', to register our disapproval bluntly and agonistically. The last thing we want to do is offend anyone. But all that such manoeuvres ensure is that nothing changes while conscience is appeased. There comes a time when diffidence and affability, those specifically Canadian virtues, work against our best interests and prevent the candid and occasionally brutal assessments without which the critical stupor and aesthetic fog so congenial to us must remain destructively in place. In Director's Cut, Solway attempts to dispel that fog, to see clearly and to speak directly to a readership that has been far too receptive of questionable work.

From handling of the chessmen you infer the secret springs of human character. To pluck the enemy chessman between your fingers and replace it with your own reveals the cultivated, well-bred killer who cannot stand the sight of blood; knock the chessman over with a small click of wood on wood tells of an aesthetic craving for the fatal instrument, of one more passionate than violent; to push the piece from its intended square is signal of aggressive character and plainly indicates that power is the motive for committing murder; some will hold the captured piece and caress it nervously: these kill from cowardice; those who seem apologetic, taking pawns reluctantly, kill for noble reasons; and he who clears the board with one great sweep of his hand will kill from lack of hope, defeated by the prospect of defeat, as did my father only death could mate.

Reaching for Clear is David Solway's translation of poetry by Dominica's celebrated young poet Rhys Savarin. Savarin now joins the Greek Andreas Karavis and the Turkish Nesmine Rifat in the growing pantheon of figures given life by Solway. An internationalist of the imagination, Solway consolidates his reputation as one of Canada's most original poets with an exciting adaptation of Savarin's lush landscapes, both human and natural. Savarin's bewitching mix of visual acuity and vernacular, his celebratory sense of an island world hedged by magic (or what Savarin himself calls "the flora and fauna of a mythical condition"), has been vividly rendered by Solway into poems distinguished by their clarity, musicality, humour, and insight.

In this sensuously defiant collection of new poems, the winner of the 2004 Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal expands and deepens a poetic ruse. In his critically acclaimed collections Saracen Island and Companion, David Solway took on the voice of a fictitious Greek poet named Andreas Karavis. The poems of these earlier two books were so artful and refreshingly immediate that many readers were convinced that they were authentic translations from the Greek. For The Pallikari of Nesmine Rifat, a new book of ostensible translations, Solway adopts the persona of Karavis's spurned lover, Turkish Cypriot poet Nesmine Rifat and explores the aftermath of one of Karavis's love affairs. Lushly sexual and sparkling with wit and intelligence, these passionate lyrics take the form of undelivered letters, written by Rifat in the wake of Karavis's desertion and his eventual marriage to her rival Anna Zoumi. Solway portrays, with subtlety and sensitivity, a powerful woman and gifted poet undergoing a turbulent emotional journey. Moving from wrath and arrogant disdain, through bitterness and grief, to an acceptance of the love she cannot subdue, his female poet grows in both strength and art. As an intimate record of one woman's anguish, The Pallikari of Nesmine Rifat is a remarkable achievement — even more so when one recalls that the author is actually a man.