It Takes All Kinds

Nora Drutz was a Toronto-based freelance writer.

Souster’s first new short lyrics in three years provide a very satisfying experience, as do all of Souster’s works. There is enough material here for a read of several hours; one can return to the book and find a fresh insight every time, all written in a style that is eminently approachable.

It is difficult to write anything new about Souster because his themes and style do not really change from one book to the next. The usual themes are here: love, nature (birds, cats), baseball, Toronto, social injustices and the outcasts of society, the war, poetry and poets, Canadian history and Canadian politicians. As usual, his voice ranges from delicate imagistic paintings to conversational narrative.

One of the most moving poems in the collection is “Veteran, Second World War,” in which a once “young flying-officer, hat at the / rakiest of angles,” now wears a thin overcoat in the icy Toronto winter and is reduced to seeking aid from the Metro Toronto Social Services. In “Outburst,” a frenzied old man follows the poet off the bus and shouts “war criminal,” believing the poet to be a Nazi war criminal. Souster here shows his humanity on thinking, “I’ll never know — and that’s what bothers me the most — / I’ll never discover the meaning behind that tortured old man’s / face / the reason for his mad, mad mouthings.” In “The Honounable Marc Lalonde Makes His First Speech to the House as Minister of Finance,” Souster shows himself as a master of the ironic aside — “More than the leaves / are falling about our ears / this sad October.”

Souster’s usual weaknesses are here: his romantic cliches and obvious banalities — “This scythe-blade of a moon / awash in the sombre heavens. / One is content with any kind of light / to break up the blackness, / to help fight against that overwhelming dark.” However, these do not detract from a fine book, and a very satisfying experience.