Born and educated in Toronto, Raymond Souster is that city's most loved poet and servant to poetry. He worked at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce from 1939 to his retirement in 1985, a career interrupted only from 1941 to 1945, when he served as ground crew in the Royal Canadian Air Force. First published as a poet in the early 1940s, Souster went on to produce over 50 volumes of his own verse and to edit or co-edit a dozen volumes of others' poetry. He founded and edited three poetry journals, Direction (1941-46), Contact (1952-54), and Combustion (1957-60). In Contact, he brought out works of major writers such as Margaret Atwood's The Circle Game, which won the 1966 Governor-General's Award for poetry. Souster was one of six poets who founded the League of Canadian Poets in 1966 and he served as its first President (1967-72). Canada gave him two of its greatest honours, the Governor General's Award for poetry (The Colour of the Times, 1966) and the Order of Canada (1995). On June 17, 1998, the Toronto Harbourfront Reading Series and his friends Al Purdy, Av Isaacs, Bruce Whiteman, Barry Callaghan, Robert Fulford, and Margaret Avison celebrated him. Fellow poets among whom he numbered his friends were Louis Dudek and Irving Layton.

The Government of Canada Order of Canada Web site, speaking for the nation, says this: "One of Canada's most important, widely-read and enduring poets, he has been a vital force for the renewal of poetry since the 1940s. His poems describe life in Toronto, ordinary people and the daily events, feelings and experiences of modern city living. A co-founder of the Canadian League of Poets, he has been a source of encouragement and inspiration to several generations of poets while promoting Canadian literature among students of all ages."

Books of Poems

Prose

Souster, Raymond. On Target . Village Bookstore Press, 1972. [novel] PS8537 .O87 O5

. Village Bookstore Press, 1972. [novel] PS8537 .O87 O5 -- and Douglas Alcorn. From Hell to Breakfast. Toronto: Intruder Press, 1980. [prose] D 811 .A5225