Search results for ""author david solway""

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.

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A dominant theme that pervades this collection is the status of "theory" in the educational system. Solway claims that nothing of genuine and productive import comes out of theories. The manifold problems that bedevil the academy cannot be solved, or even rectified, by the usual onslaught of dogmas, reforms, and pseudo-revolutionary postulates that are produced in the misguided attempt to find the single, perfect, pedagogical system. Instead, we must embark on a stringent re-examination of the principles and assumptions on which our culture itself is predicated as reflected in contemporary practice. To do this, we need to develop an accurate killer heuristic to identify and monitor threats to our vocational well-being and effectiveness. This requires courage, a horror of sentimental credulity, and a willingness to learn from those in the educational trenches: the reference librarian should be questioned about the fate of the book, not the academic dean who has seldom read one; the teacher who has weathered innumerable classes should be heard, not the personnel director who is rarely in the building; the department secretary who is about to lose her job should be heeded while a jaundiced eye is turned on the omnipresent school coordinator. In almost every case, Solway believes those who deal directly with students will tell you the truth about what is happening to education while administrators will shuffle and mislead. The essays here are based on information from the trenches as well as from a significant minority of writers on educational and cultural themes. The Turtle Hypodermic of Sickenpods will be must reading for anyone interested in the fate of students and the education system.

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