Big
Smoke Blues
new poems by Raymond Souster
An Introduction
No
one has written more lovingly, nor more honestly, about Toronto than Raymond
Souster. Over the past 65 years in book after book, Toronto has been a major
theme in Souster’s work. Now in his 90th year, this work continues with Big Smoke Blues.
Souster
is the last active member of Canada’s great Modernist poets, a group born
between 1916 and 1926. As always, his life and work are sustained by three
pillars: his love for his wife Rosalia, his Christian faith, and his confidence
in the power of sharp and decisive poetry. In Big Smoke Blues, Souster explores the role of memory in deepening
his understanding of the world and of his place within it. The collection
closes with the lines:
for
the rest of my days
past
memories like this
will
continue
to
wash over
the
shores of memory.
And indeed, these poems reflect on the people,
neighbourhoods, and places of old Toronto.
Literary
and historical figures abound — Milton Acorn, Margaret Avison, Gwendolyn
MacEwen, and Robert Weaver mingle with figures like William J. Stewart,
Archibald Lampman, John Graves Simcoe, and the United Empire Loyalists. All are
treated with sympathy and honesty. Much has been made of Souster’s “ironic
vision” by Robert Billings and others. I prefer to talk about humour and
affirmation. There is little bitterness in Souster’s poetry — instead one finds
compassion. This is especially true when the poet deals with troubled friends
such as Acorn or MacEwen. He remembers Milton Acorn leaving his cheque on the
floor of Grossman’s Tavern following the ceremony in which he received the
title “The Peoples’ Poet” and he expresses a deep sense of loss at the untimely
death of Gwen MacEwen.
In
general, the tone of these poems is one of quiet meditation. Food is remembered
fondly, its sensuousness vividly portrayed in his mother’s baked apples with
brown sugar, his mother-in-law’s polenta in chicken gravy, or his wife’s chili.
Even bread pudding assumes a simple nobility.
The
Junction District, Kensington Market, Toronto Islands, and Gerrard Street East
are brought into focus, and readers see that in these neighbourhoods the past
still lives today. Certainly the ethnic composition of Kensington has greatly
changed, but it remains a microcosm of Toronto, a city in which a hundred
tongues speak out as one.
Following
William Carlos Williams, Souster realizes the power of a poetry rooted in
place. Some of these places are gone: the Bohemian Embassy, the Village Bookstore,
Pages Books, and Robert Simpson’s Department Store. But others are still vital
parts of Toronto: Christie Pits, the C.N.E., Grenadier Pond, Wards Island, and
Vesuvio’s Pizzeria & Spaghetti House.
Souster
is no Pollyanna. He sings no song of innocence in which his youth was only
delightful days when Mr. Peanut would visit Runnymede Public School. He also
remembers the Depression when Chinese restaurants would offer a full-course
meal for a quarter. Like Carl Sandburg writing of his beloved Chicago, Souster
tells the whole story, and with affection.
Souster’s
Toronto often starts in his backyard on Baby Point Road. Here his aged mulberry
tree plays host to crows, juncos, starlings, and squirrels. Here also are his
walks along the nearby Humber River, with its parks, opossums, and the
occasional urbanized red fox. The Humber River valley is the setting for one of
a handful of love poems to Rosalia, “Humber Afternoon”. Another poem that
displays his unfading love is “For a 62nd Anniversary”.
Social
issues are in no way lacking. There are poems dealing with homelessness and the
need for proper social housing, the trap of current welfare laws, and the
ever-increasing level of crime, especially youth and street gang violence. So
the poet writes:
Shootings
and
shooting-ups
feed
the continuous
nervous
pulse
of
the city’s heartland.
There are many poems in Big Smoke Blues lamenting the prevalence of American-style street
crime in what was once Toronto the Good, a problem neither the politicians nor
the police seem competent to address.
Despite
the decay of civil society, something of value endures. While old Tory Ontario
is lost in the past, neighbourhoods survive. Although The Boat Portuguese
restaurant has closed, other restaurants (some Portuguese) have opened in
Kensington Market. And Wards Island is still a charming village for poets just
as it was at the time when Milton Acorn and Gwendolyn MacEwen lived there.
Unlike
his prior collections, Souster now offers five poems concerning his Christian
faith. In “This Man of April” he affirms the presence of Jesus within our lives
in this Easter meditation:
This
Man of April
lives
here
with
us still
The poet states in “At Peace” that he has found
solace in the arms of Jesus:
he’s
found peace
nestled
in
to
his saviour’s
all
compassionate grace.
In this poem, and throughout the book as a whole,
Souster habitually refers to himself in the third person.
Souster
is a member of Runnymede United Church. One of the few politicians he admires,
William J. Stewart, was also in Runnymede’s congregation. In fact, Souster
attended Sunday School with Stewart’s son. Stewart served as Toronto’s mayor
during the Depression, and the poet praises his co-religionist for displaying
“good common sense”.
Readers will notice a distinct
paucity of visual images. There is nothing like
Rain-whipped
leaf-ruin,
dying
green-yellows,
already
dead-crackling browns
in Big Smoke
Blues. This is because Souster has gone blind and can no longer see the
subjects of his poems. But his lack of vision is compensated for by the
vitality and redemptive quality of his memory.
While
most of these poems are set in the Toronto Souster has personally known for
nine decades, history does appear in the form of John Graves Simcoe and the
United Empire Loyalists. The Loyalists were the English-speaking founders of
what we know today as Ontario. Souster observes that while they were the
“cursed traitors” of the United States, they were Canada’s “steadfast, unsung
heroes.” Governor Simcoe (1752-1806) and his wife left behind
such
goodwill
that
a lake,
a
town, and a street
still
bear their name.
Simcoe’s vision of a common sense alternative to
the United States has not worked out as planned. The present Americanization of
our culture is, perhaps, an unintended consequence of the consumption of
American culture, such as the poetry of Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams,
and Charles Olson. No one person is to blame, of course. Canada had the
unfortunate fate to share a continent with a nation ten times as powerful and
ten times as committed to the notion of progress. Progress was the flavour of
the 20th century. But, as Souster suggests, Archibald Lampman would have grown
to curse the 20th century
with
every fibre
of
his fragile body
had
our great poet
been
destined
to
survive.
Big Smoke Blues closes with a section
dealing with old age, illness, and mortality. Few poets take up these concerns,
as common as they unfortunately are. Raymond Souster, however, is a brave poet
who ducks no topic, not even pain and his own frail and failing body. While
some people speak of “dying with dignity”, all too few speak of living with dignity. These final poems,
humane and with a seriousness softened by humour, written while in hospital and
rehab centre, are a most welcome addition to Canadian literature. Our culture
and our lives are enriched by this book.
James
Deahl
Hamilton
September,
2010
