Raymond Souster: in memoriam

"His ashes should be carried up Yonge St. by elephants"
                                                            (Joe Fiorito,Toronto Star)


Poet-editor James Deahl has just alerted us to the passing of a great Canadian poet, Raymond Souster. Below is the text of James's announcement. I've reflected on Souster's poetry here. Deahl's own introduction to Souster's book of verse Big Smoke Blues can be read here.

Thank you, James!
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Canada lost one of its greatest poets yesterday. Here is the bio note I wrote for The Ambassador not very long ago.

Raymond Souster was born in Toronto during 1921 and has been a leading member of the Great Generation for the past 70 years. Souster won the Governor General’s Award for poetry in 1964 (for The Colour of the Times), was presented with Canada’s Centennial Medal in 1967, won the City of Toronto Book award in 1979 (for Hanging In), and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1995. He was a founding member of the League of Canadian Poets and served as LCP President from 1967 to 1971. He is the author of well over 70 books, largely of poetry, most recently Easy Does It and Never Counting the Cost.

 

Souster served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II. In the 1950s, he edited first Contact and later Combustion, the foremost Canadian poetry magazines of their day. He also ran Contact Press for 15 years (1952 – 1967), which published many of Canada’s most important contemporary poets. Souster lives in Toronto with his wife Rosalia.

Or you can check Ray on Google. In my short bio I only hit some (but certainly not all) of the highlights. The bio on Google has not been updates since 2006, so it does not mention Ray’s most recent 13 books. You read correctly, 13 new books in 6 years. And a 14^th book was almost completed.

Below are two of the last poems Raymond Souster wrote. One is a love poem (Ray never stopped writing love poems) and the other is one of his best Christian poems.

Silver Creek

 

She has become

the magical silver creek

of his boyhood’s hot

summer afternoon,

meandering lazily

beneath a leafy canopy

through which

the mottled sunshine

faintly shines.

Now in his imagination

he cups both hands

and dips them in

her gently murmuring stream,

getting at least

one thirsty sip

of her life-renewing water

with the certainty

that her wondrous presence

will never happen again

in his lifetime.

 

Good Friday

 

While 4,700

advance pool election stations

are being readied across

the length and breadth

of this fair land,

Roman soldiers

are tying the wrists

and nailing the feet

of our Jesus Christ,

and while children

are hunting excitedly

through the grass

for chocolate-covered eggs

of Easter,

His thirst-driven cries

are being cruelly answered

by those same soldiers

raising on a pole

to His lips

a cloth soaked in vinegar,

and while Earth Day celebrations

occurring at the same time

find many people

planting much needed trees,

the tortured head

of the Son of God

sinks down

and with a last moan of pain

is released from this world.

Fraternally,

. . . James