text: Raymond Souster | Penny's poetry pages Wiki | Fandom
  Raymond Souster (1921-2012). Photo by Henry Fox. Courtesy Library and Archives Canada PA-.
  October 19, 2012 (aged 91)
  Hillhead High School, Toronto
  The Colour of the Times (1964)
  Raymond Holmes Souster OC (January 15, 1921 - October 19, 2012) was a Canadian poet whose writing career spanned more than 70 years.[1]
  Souster published more than 50 volumes of his own poems, and edited or co-edited a dozen volumes of others' poetry. A resident of Toronto all of his life, he has been called that city's "most loved poet".[2]
  Born in Toronto, Ontario, Souster lived his entire life in that city. He joined the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in 1939 and (apart from 4 years' service in the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II) worked there until retiring in 1985.[1]
  Souster's 1st published poem appeared in First Statement, the little magazine founded by John Sutherland in Montreal in 1942. In 1943, while still in the air force, Souster and 2 friends launched their own little poetry magazine, Direction.[4] In 1944 he placed 21 poems in the anthology Unit of Five, alongside poetry by Louis Dudek, Ronald Hambleton, P.K. Page, and James Wreford.[5]
  With Dudek and Irving Layton, Souster founded Contact magazine and Contact Press in 1952. The magazine lasted only until 1954, but Contact Press put out books until 1967. Its initial book was Cerberus, an anthology of poetry by the trio. All 3 would be prolific writers on Contact Press over the next decade.
  In 1956 Contact Press published Souster's Selected Poems, edited by Dudek, which brought Souster his earliest serious critical attention.[6]
  In 1956 Souster brought out under the Contact Press imprint a small booklet, Experiment 1923-29, of modernist poetry that Canadian poet W.W.E. Ross had written in the 1920s, which saved Ross's work from obscurity.[7]
  Souster also helped new writers. He edited two anthologies for Contact, Poets 56 in 1956, and New Wave Canada: The New Explosion in Poetry in 1966. "Souster brought several young poets to Contact Press, and gave an important boost to the new poetry with New Wave Canada."[5] The young poets included Margaret Atwood, whose earliest book with Contact, The Circle Game, would win the Governor General's Award in 1966.[2]
  Michael Ondaatje has written of Souster: "He brought many of us to the surface and we owe him everything."[3]
  Souster was a founder of the League of Canadian Poets in 1966, and its earliest president, from 1967 to 1972.[2]
  The early 1960s were a prolific and distinguished period for Souster, culminating in his own Governor General's Award win in 1964 for his Collected Poems, The Colour of the Times. "In the late 1960s he embarked on the revision of his early poetry with a view to its reissue," a project that resulted in a Selected Poems in 1972, and the first four volumes of a now ten-volume Collected Poems in 1980.[6]
  Souster has also written fiction under the pseudonyms of "Raymond Holmes" and "John Holmes",[5] for which he has drawn on his Air Force experience.[6]
  Souster is a chronicler of his birth city. Fulford wrote that "many of us think of him first as the poet-in-chief of Toronto. A city comes to life only after writers have invented it, and Souster has been among Toronto's inventors, adding a layer of poetic reality to the abstractions of asphalt, glass, and brick. His Toronto poems work like photographs in the Henri Cartier-Bresson tradition, inscribing small pieces of space and time on the memory, catching a moment as it flies."[3]
  Souster won the Governor General's Award for English language poetry or drama in 1964 for The Colour of the Times.[5]
  The League of Canadian Poets awards an annual Raymond Souster Award for the best book of poetry published by a League member in the preceding year.[9]
  Cerberus (with Irving Layton and Louis Dudek). Toronto: Contact Press, 1952.
  Shake Hands with the Hangman: Poems, 1940-52 Toronto: Contact Press, 1953.
  The Selected Poems (edited by Louis Dudek). Toronto: Contact Press, 1956.
  Crepe-Hanger's Carnival: Selected poems, 1955-58 Toronto: Contact Press, 1958.
  Place of Meeting: Poems, 1958-1960 (with lithographs by Michael Snow). Isaacs Gallery / Gallery Editions II, 1962.
  So Far, So Good: Poems, 1938-1968. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1969.
  Selected Poems (edited by Michael Maklem). Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1972.
  The Colour of the Times / Ten Elephants on Yonge Street. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1973.
  Double Header: As Is / Lost & Found. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1975.
  Into This Dark Earth (with James Deahl). Toronto: Unfinished Monument Press, 1985.
  Collected Poems of Raymond Souster (10 volumes), Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1980-2004. (covering 1940 - 2000)
  The Winter of Time. Toronto 1949 (as "Raymond Holmes"). Toronto: Export Publishing Enterprises, 1949.[10]
  On Target (as "John Holmes"). Village Bookstore Press, 1972.
  From Hell to Breakfast (with Douglas Alcorn). Toronto: Intruder Press, 1980.
  Enterprise, 1948. [6]
  W.W.E. Ross, Experiment, 1923-1929 Toronto: Contact Press, 1956.[7]
  New Poems of the Seventies (with Douglas Lochhead). Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1970.
  Made in Canada (with Douglas Lochhead). Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1970.
  Generation Now (with Richard Woollatt). Longman: 1970.
  Sights and Sounds (with Richard Woollatt). Toronto: Macmillan, 1973.
  100 Poems of Nineteenth Century Canada (with Douglas Lochhead). Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1974.
  These Loved, These Hated Lands (with Richard Woollatt). Toronto: Doubleday of Canada, 1975.
  Poems of a Snow-Eyed Country (with Richard Woollatt). Don Mills, ON: Academic Press, 1980.
  Powassan's Drum: Selected poems of Duncan Campbell Scott (with Douglas Lochhead). Ottawa: Tecumseh, 1985.
  Windflower: Poems Of Bliss Carman (with Douglas Lochhead). Ottawa: Tecumseh, 1985. ISBN 978-0919662070
  Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the University of Toronto.[2]
  Death by Streetcar by Raymond Souster
  Celebration: Famous Canadian Poets CD. Canadian Poetry Association, 2001 (CD#3) (with Gwendolyn MacEwen) ISBN 1-55253-032-9
  "Raymond Souster," Canadian Writers and Their Works (edited by Robert Lecker, Jack David, and Ellen Quigley) 5 (1985), 237-276.
  Gary Geddes, "A Cursed and Singular Blessing," Canadian Literature 54 (1972), 27-36
  ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Toronto poet Raymond Souster dies at 91," Arts and Entertainment, CBC News, October 22, 2012. CBC.ca, Web, Oct. 22, 2012.
  ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Selected Poetry of Raymond Souster, Representative Poetry Online, UToronto.ca, Web, May 7, 2011.
  ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Robert Fulford, "The wonderful enigma of Raymond Souster", Globe & Mail, Jun. 24, 1998, RobertFulford.com, Web, May 7, 2011.
  ↑ 4.0 4.1 Harry Hugh Cook, "The Poetry of Raymond Souster." (.pdf), Simon Fraser University, 1968 (thesis).
  ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 Michael Gnarowski, "Souster, Raymond Holmes," Canadian Encyclopedia (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1988), 2047-2048.
  ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Michael Gnarowski, "Raymond Holmes Souster Biography," Encyclopedia of Literature, 10061, JRank.org, Web, May 7, 2001.
  ↑ 7.0 7.1 "W.W.E. Ross Biography," Dictionary of Literary Biography, BookRags.com, Web, Apr. 8, 2011.
  ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Raymond Souster," Online Guide to Writing in Canada, Track0.com, Web, May 7, 2011.
  ↑ Raymond Souster Award, League of Canadian Poets, Poets.ca, Web, Oct. 22, 2012.
  ↑ Search results = au:Raymond Souster, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Feb. 28, 2015.
  "Lagoons, Hanlan's Point" at Poetry in Voice
  Raymond Souster at the Poetry Foundation
  Souster, Raymond (1921-2012) - 16 poems ('Twas the Second Day before Christmas, Aftermath, Encounters with Mrs. Raccoon, The Face of the Plasterer, Flight of the Roller-Coaster, Four Girls at the Corner, Girl at the Corner of Dundas & Elizabeth, Gwen, Night on the Uplands, November 24, 1992, Prayer, Queen Anne's Lace, Riding the Thundering Horse, Short Short Song; To the Canadian Poets, 1940; Your Fellow Americans) at Representative Poetry Online.