Subject: Shane Neilson's response to John MacKenzie

Dear Editor, 

It seems to me that John MacKenzie was quite generous in his appraisal of Shane Neilson’s interview of David Solway as “somewhat sycophantic.” Mr. Neilson can protest till he’s blue in the face that “sycophancy is not [his] mode”, that MacKenzie “misconstrued” the interview, but the textual evidence betrays him. A great number of Neilson’s questions are laced with superlatives (“the results are usually hilarious and quite perceptive”; “your own work’s rigor”; “How did you arrive at the clever end-words that allowed such deft manipulation?”; “a beautiful meditation on prairie landscape packed with felicitous metaphor”; “On the Sonnet is an impish defense of the form.”) This gratuitous puckering-up makes for a most cloying read on the whole, and could only be mistaken for simple ‘enthusiasm’ by a naïf. I have read many interviews, but encountered few seasoned with such sweetly gratuitous praise (with the possible exception of Peter Gzowski’s latter years).

But perhaps more telling of Mr. Neilson’s eagerness to curry Solway’s favour is something that is NOT present in the text of the interview. In his bio on the TDR site, Neilson professes to be a great admirer of Al Purdy, even going so far as to say: “some poems were so lateral but direct I knew I wanted to BE him”. Solway, on the other hand, has been most outspoken in his denigration of Purdy and his influence on Canadian poetry (going so far as to credit an unwelcome letter of praise from Purdy as a crux in his (Solway’s) development as a poet!), a fact of which Mr. Neilson must surely be aware. Now, a discussion of the relative merits and demerits of Al Purdy, in this context, might have made for some spicy (rather than ‘tepid’) material. I can only assume that Mr. Neilson sidestepped the issue in order to avoid offending Mr. Solway. How very Canadian.

I don’t think that John MacKenzie “has completely missed the point of Solway's most recent heteronym”. Rather, he seems to be stating his view that Solway’s Bartholomeans have no point; i.e., that they are dull. Based on what I’ve seen so far, I would have to concur. My experience with Solway in general is that for every good poem he writes (and I agree that Redeye Ghazal is definitely one; I’ve never seen the prairies, but almost feel like I don’t have to now) he produces (at least) a half-dozen pieces of complete wankery. Likewise in his prose, for every sound judgment well-articulated is surrounded by a mass of pendantry, pique, and pompousness. As for the sestina and sonnet, they’re mildly witty bits of finger-stretching. It’s depressing to think how long it took him to turn out such indifferent nothings.

Finally, I think that Mr. Neilson’s claim never to have heard of MacKenzie is disingenuous (unless it is an attempt at ironic humour). If it were true, how would he know that MacKenzie has books to be sought out? At any rate, I recommend that he does seek out Sledgehammer and Shaken by Physics. If he can lay aside his wounded vanity long enough to read them in a disinterested fashion, Mr. Neilson will find much that rewards the effort.

Regards,
Zach Wells
Resolute Bay, Nunavut