Flight of the Roller-Coaster: Poems for Younger Readers

Ellen Pilon is a library assistant in the Patrick Power Library at Saint
Mary’s University in Halifax.

Richard Woollatt has selected these poems by Raymond Souster, eminent Canadian poet, and has added the subtitle “Poems for Younger Readers.” The poems are Woollatt’s choices, not Souster’s. Souster’s two dozen or more books of poetry were written for all ages, young and old alike. Flight of the Roller-Coaster poemsare no exception: they will appeal to young and old. Woollatt’s criterion for the selection, and justification for the qualifying subtitle, is that the poems will “appeal most strongly to younger readers.” His selections are good ones and should indeed appeal to the desired audience of 10-to 12-year-olds.

The poems are arranged by subject into seven sections: Adventure, Birds & Animals, Different Cultures Different Lives, The City, Weather & The Seasons, The World of Sports, On the Move. The poems of any one section do represent the subject of that section: none are extraneous. Every one of Souster’s poems is a delight to read. He finds poetry in common day-to-day sights, sounds, and experiences. Many of the poems are portraits: boys throwing stones at ducks, going to the drugstore for ice cream, a butterfly flitting through the garden. Reading Souster, we see Toronto with him, the Toronto of today and the Toronto of yesterday when he was growing up. We see nature through his eyes and love his cat with him. We hear of his sense of loneliness and the loneliness he sees in others: the Japanese person at the bus-stop, “Beautiful mask. / Lonely hour.” In “Some Kind of Ease” he describes telephone calls, “the sound of voices” speeding “across the wires. / Some kind of ease / dropped down the well / of our deep loneliness.” The loneliness is carried a step further as he portrays himself as the lone observer: in “The First Two Acorns,” he says, “and only I to ponder.” In “Decision on King Street,” as he watches the beggar holding the pencil and the woman stopping, the intensity of the poet’s watching suggests he is the only observer.

Woollatt has included a five-page introduction which is well written, both in style and content, for younger readers. Intended to encourage young readers, the introduction succeeds with its short erudite analyses of a few poems and its hints on reading poetry. Woollatt also poses good stimulating questions to consider when reading a poem. Aided in part by Woollatt’s few pithy suggestions, young readers enjoying Souster’s poems will experience a fresh look at the world around.