Visions Fugitive

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

This book of poems by Ralph Gustafson is, sadly, the last in a list so
long that only bibliographers could count them. He died in May 1995, and
the final section consists of “December Poems,” written in hospital
the previous year. The final poem of all is dated “December 25th.”
There is something acutely poignant about this poetic leavetaking on a
day that celebrates birth close to the end of a dying year.

Gustafson was an extraordinary poetic phenomenon. Not only did his
publication record extend over 60 years, but the standard of his work
showed no signs of faltering. On the contrary, I find his later verse,
including this volume, decidedly superior to his earlier. At times one
sensed an almost willed obscurity in the work of his younger days, an
enigmatic allusiveness for which, too often, one lacked the key. But as
he went on, he sloughed off the “difficult” quality and attained an
extraordinary immediacy and clear focus. He never suppressed his
wide-ranging knowledge (references abound here to classical music,
painting, history, literature), but what impresses is his irrepressible
fascination with life in all its beauty, sadness, absurdity, sublimity,
and (above all) fleetingness.

Visions Fugitive reads as a sampler of so many Gustafson modes and
moods. There are a few brightly etched travel poems (collected in
“Sardonics”); the final statements in his on-going debate with
himself about life, death, and a dubious immortality; tenderly
descriptive poems about natural beauty; touching (but never sentimental)
personal reminiscences; and much more. Above all, admirers will relish
his stylistic virtuosity: he could say anything he felt like saying with
authority and consummate ease.

In an eloquent and appropriate preface, Bruce Whiteman writes: “There
is wisdom in this book, as always, for Ralph Gustafson was an infinitely
wise poet.” Yes, indeed.