Collected Poems of Raymond Souster, Volume Five, 1977-83

Robert Merrett was Professor of English at the University of Alberta.

This volume reprints two previously published collections of poems: Hanging In (1979) and Going the Distance (1983). In the preface, Souster describes his Collected Poems as less of a collected works than a continuing series. Clearly, he expects to continue being prolific. Yet, readers new to this ongoing series are likely to wonder why the poet has not written less and made the quality of his poems higher, why he has not exercised a greater selectivity within both individual poems and volumes. His poetry is chatty and casual in the extreme; its imagery is diffuse and hardly ever dramatically intense, and its themes are static and undeveloped. It is too easy to tell what preoccupies him. He keeps coming back to memories and stories of World War II; he is very fond of describing animals, such as squirrels, which, while independent of man, adapt themselves cleverly to the human and natural environment; and he likes depicting eccentric down-and-outs who survive in the city in ways that prompt him to see in them analogies to himself as poet. But it is difficult to see topical development within the volumes. Souster simply alternates his topics without giving them any incremental force. He does not treat them in extended ways. Diffuse in their expression and structure, his poems do not seem to relate to one another.

The root problem is illustrated in “A Visit From Frank O’Hara” (pp.224-25). In this poem, Souster reports on a public reading for the poet O’Hara, which he organized. Souster and the tiny audience were puzzled and frustrated by O’Hara’s “conversational chit-chat.” Souster claims it took a decade for people to start appreciating O’Hara’s “hymns of daily living so unadorned, /so lyrically alive, reaching effortlessly out /into the most banal, precious moments /of mind and body.” Souster takes O’Hara for his model. But the result is that Souster’s plain style is prosaic rather than lyrical. His poems seem to lack the mark of craftmanship; they too often appear merely inconsequential. Souster’s predisposition for found poems does nothing to counteract this impression. His poems do not distil meaning; they are gestures in the face of insignificance rather than creative devices.

Matching his failure to select and to blot out is the fact that when confronted by evil Souster blusters and declaims about his poetic role instead of making it work for him. His strengths are the rambling anecdote, the moment of whimsy, and the excitement of unfolding military action. These are less poetic skills than those of the raconteur and short-story writer. If the reader is patient and wades through much inadequate poetry, he will come upon startling narrative moments. Even though we can be grateful for such moments, we are not likely to overlook that such strengths are better suited to other than poetic forms.