Raymond Holmes Souster (born 15 January 1921) is a Canadian poet.

Born in Toronto, Ontario, he grew up and continues to live in the Humberside area of the city. Souster joined the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in 1939 and, apart from his service in World War II, worked there until his retirement in 1985. With Louis Dudek and Irving Layton he collaborated on CONTACT magazine and Contact Press. Souster helped to establish the League of Canadian Poets and, from 1967 to 1972, served as the first president of the organization.

Souster was born in Toronto in 1921 to lower-middle-class parents; his father, Austin Souster, was a clerk in the Canadian Bank of Commerce; his mother was the former Norma Baker. As a child Souster was an outstanding pitcher in bantam and juvenile baseball leagues, but on graduation from high school he took a clerking job with the Imperial Bank of Canada (later the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce) where he worked for forty-five years. In 1941 he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force, hoping for both pilot training and overseas service. However, because of medical limitations, he was trained as ground crew and posted to Nova Scotia and later New Brunswick. A posting to Europe took him to Yorkshire for the last days of the war.


Jubilee of Death: The Raid on Dieppe (1984) is a more innovative work on the theme of war. It is a long poem for twenty-seven voices-ranging from a private to Lt. Gen. A. G. L. McNaughton to Winston Churchill-that reconstructs the human emotions behind the ill-fated Canadian attack on Dieppe on 19 August 1942.