Obit: Irving Layton - Poet (1912 - 3 Jan 2006)

Subject: Obit: Irving Layton - Poet
From: bobad
Date: 04 Jan 06 - 06:17 PM

Irving Peter Layton (1912-) né Israel Lazarovitch in Romania, poet, short-story writer, essayist, professor. Since the early 1940s, Layton has been recognized in Canada and abroad as a prolific, versatile, revolutionary and controversial poet of the "modern" school. He was one of a nucleus of young Montréal poets who believed they were effecting a revolution against insipid romanticism. His satire was generally directed against bourgeois dullness, and his famous love poems were erotically explicit. He published numerous volumes of poems of unusual range and versatility and a few of prose.
Layton has theorized that poetry should be "vital, intense, subtle and dramatic," and his work is ample proof of his description.

Subject: RE: Obit: Irving Layton - Poet
From: Peace
Date: 04 Jan 06 - 07:03 PM

News obit here.

Mr Layton was remarkable in that he helped put Montreal on the map as far as writers goes. His poetry influenced the writing of a generation of Montreal poets--many of whom rank with the best any country has to offer.

Subject: RE: Obit: Irving Layton - Poet
From: sian, west wales
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 06:59 AM

I'm glad that, when I was in high school in the 70s the curriculum included a lot of home-grown Canadian literature, Layton included. I think he even came to our school to speak once. I see from his biography (www.irvinglayton.com) that he once taught some kid called Leonard Cohen ...

siân

Subject: RE: Obit: Irving Layton - Poet
From: bobad
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 10:45 PM

MISUNDERSTANDING
by Irving Layton

I placed
my hand
upon
her thigh.

By the way
she moved
away
I could see
her devotion
to literature
was not
perfect.

Subject: RE: Obit: Irving Layton - Poet (1912 - 3 Jan 2006)
From: Charmion
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 03:26 PM

My aunt Pat (BA Hons, Philosophy, McGill, 1951) remembers Irving Layton well, and once told me a story about a cocktail party in the McGill student ghetto around Lorne Crescent. During a general conversation about the New Look (this would be in the fall of 1950), Layton butted in with a passionate statement against women who shave their legs and armpits ... and after 10 minutes of passionate argument, when he had everyone in the group agreeing with him, he reversed course and argued precisely the opposite.