The Lover's Progress

David Solway opts for a bawdier approach to the lyric in "The Lover's Progress." He models his lyric sequence on William Hogarth's famous series of paintings, "The Rake's Progress" (1733-35), and transports the rakish protagonist at the centre of Hogarth's narrative into the twenty-first century. Solway makes the rake a cruiser'' of bars, women, and philosophies, as well as a dabbler in poetry. Perpetually in motion, the lover travels from Canada to Greece and revisits many of Solway's favourite haunts.'