Old Bank Notes

Edward L. Edmonds is a professor of English at the University of Prince
Edward Island.

Cecil Day Lewis once observed that, first and foremost, poetry is
something to be enjoyed: a better example than this latest volume of
poems by Raymond Souster would be hard to come by. Reviving the art of
the longer narrative poem, he adopts the laidback style of the veteran
raconteur, reflecting on his own earlier daily avocation and on those
who shared in it. Souster is variously witty, laconic, playful, and
tender. In later poems, particularly those detailing so pointedly and
poignantly incidents in World War II and thereafter, a much more sombre
mood prevails. The last section of poems, ending in an astonishingly
evocative prose confessional, will strike a responsive chord in anyone
who has witnessed slow death. The attractive black-and-white cover
design is by William Notman.