Raymond Souster

Raymond Holmes Souster OC (January 15, 1921 – October 19, 2012) was a Canadian poet whose writing career spanned over 70 years. More than 50 volumes of his own poetry were published during his lifetime, and he edited or co-edited a dozen volumes of poetry by others.^[1] A resident of Toronto all of his life, he has been called that city's "most loved poet".^[2]

Robert Fulford wrote of Souster in 1998: "You can't read the history of Canadian poetry without encountering him, yet somehow he remains obscure. His legendary shyness has created, over five decades, a curious form of anonymity: he's at once omnipresent and invisible."^[3]