SOURCE: “A Breakthrough into Spaciousness: The ‘Collected Poems’ of Donald Davie,” in Queen's Quarterly, Vol. LXXX, No. 4, Winter, 1973, pp. 601-15.

In the following essay, Greene emphasizes the importance of Canada to Davie's verse.

I

Eight hours between us, eight hours by the clock between us, eleven hours flying time. 

Canada nowadays is what you fly over when travelling non-stop between California and Europe. The plane takes off, circling over the blue Pacific water and white sand beaches of Venice (California) and Malibu, dotted with surfboarders and scuba divers; then over the rugged mountain chain surrounding the Los Angeles basin, then across the Mojave and Nevada and Utah deserts (on the right route and a clear day you get a fine view of the Grand Canyon). Then the snow-capped immensity of the Rocky Mountains. But then, hour after hour of flat, monotonous prairie, dotted with towns, smaller and larger...