Drawing on the wide-ranging artistic experience gained in his years of acting and writing for theatre, Sol first ventured into poetry in 1977. Here he found he could more intensely express the thoughts and feelings garnered from his acute sense of observation. People, their interaction with the environment and the socio-political and cultural times, the pains and hopes of a generation and the multi-facetted world of an evolving Johannesburg are the inspiration of his deeply-felt poems and ballads. Ordinary activities, every-day occurrences, a chance conversation overheard between two street-cleaners, the brutal death of a young political activist at the hands of security police, observations on the crime, violence and morals of naked Soweto - all are evoked in haunting, nostalgic and sometimes ironic reminiscences which recreate a period slowly fading from memory. He turns a blistering spotlight on some incidents, encapsulated in a few, searing words. Others he treats with tenderness, understanding and an empathy which resounds within the reader's own emotions. Life at its most basic is counterbalanced by deep philosophic probings. There are unspoken challenges to question and to act as did the young people of those chaotic '70s.