A woven gathering basket, 1962.
“Knister's object, in writing poetry, was to present the object seen, the thing felt, as simply and feelingly as possible.”
From "Raymond Knister. A Memoir" by Dorothy Livesay, in The Collected Poems of Raymond Knister. (Toronto: The Ryerson Press, 1949, page xxi)
October Stars
Was it the frenzied whisper
Of covert wind to obdurate apple boughs,
(Leaves sheltering no more fruit)
Or the paled sky drawing in,
Or the peal of a shooting-star
Across the night?
Or did all these
And the tame apple-smell
Through the wind in your hair
Make me to long
For an end to life?
Blenheim, Ontario
(After Exile, page 55)