Irving Layton, Poet

Layton out Loud TONIGHT at Concordia!

2009-10-01T10:55:00.001-07:00

Hi Layton fans,

Sorry this is a little late but there is a wonderful event called Layton Out Loud hosted by Concordia at 6pm EST at the Vanier Library - http://cjournal.concordia.ca/archives/20091001/the_quiet_madman_making_noise.php.

Unfortunately I cannot attend as I am out of the country, however we would love to hear comments from those who attend!

Here is the article as linked to above:

Fifty archival boxes sit on the shelves of a fluorescently lit, climate-controlled storeroom in the Vanier Library. It’s a humble, eerily sterile home for the complete collected works of poet Irving Layton, a man remembered equally for his pride and fertile words.

It’s a backdrop seemingly too poetically rich for him to withhold comment on, even posthumously. On the top shelf rest two busts of Layton – one, eyes open and smiling; the other, eyes closed and sombre – as if he were silently mulling over a poem about the life contained in these 50 boxes.

Quiet as it may be right now, his legacy is about to get louder.

At 6 p.m. on Oct. 1 at Vanier Library, Layton will be commemorated at Layton Out Loud, the homecoming event organized by the Special Collections team at Concordia Libraries to honour the man’s literary legacy and his lengthy relationship with Concordia.

Theatre professor and acting chair of the department Nancy Helms (left) coaches undergrad Shannon Hamilton during a rehearsal on Sept. 25 in VL-126. Hamilton will be interpreting Layton’s 1963 poem There Were No Signs at the event.

The collection (consisting of all his published works, letters, CBC interviews, 300 audio recordings, scrapbooks and all the drafts of his poems including some written on stray paperbags) has resided at Concordia for nearly 40 years.

The event will include an exhibit of selected works, an audio exhibit complete with MP3 players, and a colourful interpretation of Layton poems by three theatre students. This will be the second event honouring Layton this fall; on Sept. 26 and 27, Special Collections hosted the 26th Montreal Antiquarian Book Fair in the McConnell Atrium, which displayed early Layton manuscripts.

Layton taught creative writing part-time at SGW University from 1949-65 and became poet in residence from 1965-69. He made a jump to York University in 1970-78 to teach creative writing, but didn’t disconnect from Concordia completely.
In the early 70s, Layton began discussing with then-head of the reference department Jim Polson the possibility of housing all his material at Concordia. When Polson saw the amount of material Layton had, he hired English literature master’s student Joy Bennett to help organize the collection. Bennett went on to be a librarian and university administrator.

Although she wasn’t particularly familiar with Layton’s work, Bennett jumped at the chance to work with such a prominent figure.

Theatre student Alexandra Draghici rehearses the 1956 poem The Fertile Muck. “He believed in soulfulness, truth and passion. I think it’s important for someone to keep these things alive,” she says.

“Irving was larger than life. He was one of the most charismatic individuals I’d ever met,” she says. “He would show up unannounced with a gym bag full of his stuff, and the whole place would go abuzz.”

In 1974, an arrangement was formalized whereby he would donate or sell his manuscripts, correspondence and other related material to the Libraries’ Special Collections in the Norris Building. Extending beyond the library walls, Bennett says Layton was remarkably generous with his time, often arranging speaking engagements with students in creative writing.

His lengthy service and generosity was recognized with an honorary doctorate in 1976. Shortly thereafter, he returned to his Concordia duties as writer in residence, and was also made an adjunct English professor.

Over the years, Layton and Bennett grew close in friendship, transcending a strictly professional relationship. Roughly 20 years ago, Bennett decided to adopt a baby from Romania. Layton, who was born in the Romanian town of Tirgul Neamt in 1912, took personal interest in her plans. “He was thrilled,” she says. “He really thought that was special and it was something we shared. He always remembered his heritage.”

It was his openness and passion for life that kept their affinity for each other growing. In 1993, Bennett co-edited Raging Like a Fire (Véhicule Press), a collection of memoirs, letters and poems in honour of Layton. The book presented her with an opportunity for her own tribute; inspired by Layton’s profound ode to his daughter, Song for Naomi, Bennett penned a poem for her daughter. Her version, Song for Marian, graced Layton’s eyes for the first time as they presented the book to him at an event celebrating his 80th birthday. The celebration marked the beginning of a difficult period in time, Bennett reflects, as it became apparent his battle with Alzheimer’s had begun to take effect.

“It was kind of hard. I couldn’t bear to see him and know he wouldn’t know who I was,” she says. It was an ailment that would increasingly afflict him until his death at the age of 93 in Jan. 2006.

Today, the collection is being cared for by Digital and Special Collections Librarian Annie Murray – one of the key personalities in realizing the Layton Out Loud event. Like Bennett before her, Murray has both a BA and MA in English literature and had always been aware of Layton, but strangely had never examined his work. Stranger still, her exposure to Layton was limited to reading Song for Naomi in high school – the same poem that affected Bennett years before.

“It’s weird to be totally enmeshed in one person’s world. I’ve seen his handwriting, all his letters,” says Murray. “I never knew him, but I sort of know him. He’s like a powerful ghost.”

This summer, Murray contacted theatre professor and acting chair of the department Nancy Helms and asked her if she’d be interested in finding a few undergrads to perform Layton’s poetry for the event. Three stepped forward. Alexandra Draghici will be performing 1956’s The Fertile Muck, Shannon Hamilton will perform 1963’s There Were No Signs and Mireck Metelski, 1978’s Night Music.

“It’s neat because they chose the poems themselves, and each one spans different periods of his writing,” says Helms. “They each have different voices depending on where he was in his life.”

Helms has worked closely with the three over the latter half of the summer and into the fall to bring out their individual interpretations. How exactly the interpretation will unfold is as personal as the words being read. “My opinion is, ‘when it’s on the page, it’s up for grabs’,” she says.

Draghici, now in her last year, has had a long love for Layton, stretching all the way back to her childhood. “He’s part of my soul,” she says.

“When I think of him, I think of someone […] claiming his power and not having to work for it because of his intense presence. I think of somebody who isn’t perfect but probably stayed true to himself.”

For Bennett, the event marks a complete circle of sorts – a fitting tribute to someone who helped the school, the writing community and Canadian literature so much.

“I’m really pleased to see him truly appreciated.”

A mother and son's journey to Greece, now and then, May 9, 09

2009-06-23T09:09:00.000-07:00

http://www.thestar.com/
The Toronto Star (Travel section)
BY David Layton
Aviva Whiteson
Special to the Star

Here are the first words my mother said to me after I told her we'd each have a private veranda aboard our ship: "Be careful that you don't lean over the rails or you might fall over!" She was serious.

Not long after that she called to say that spring in Greece is unpredictable. She'd looked at the weather forecast and told me to pack warm clothes — for the next few days "layers" became her favourite word. "Do they heat the boat?"

The boat in question was the luxurious Silver Wind, a ship so white you almost needed sunglasses just to stare at it, and one of four ships operated by SilverSea Cruises.

"I don't know, Mom, but they might have some blankets we could wrap around our shoulders."

"It's not," I added, "like the old days."

Those days were in point of fact the young days, when I'd been a child, my mother a young woman, and our mode of transportation was one step up from a donkey. It had been almost 30 years since my father, Irving Layton, my mother and I last travelled to Greece together. Mother's Day was approaching, an excuse for us to go back there, but this time without my father, who'd passed away.

My mother is 76. I am in my 40s. If not now, when?

Our first stop was the Hotel Phaedra in Athens, where my parents and I had stayed in 1967. The tiny, toy elevator I used to joyride when I was a kid was still in operation, but as with my mother and me, much has changed over the intervening years. Once charging less than $5 a night, the hotel, like Athens, has been renovated and transformed for the Olympic Games in 2004. But the view of the Acropolis, which we can see from our balcony, is unchanged and eternal. So, too, the Plaka, the historical district, with its village houses and cobblestoned streets that surround it.

It was on one of those very cobblestones that my mother, on our first night, tripped and fell. My mother, previously so concerned for my own welfare, now lay on the ground with a serious gash on her forehead, a possible concussion, and the definite need to find a hospital.

Here's a valuable lesson someone once passed on to me: When in need, always go to the best hotel, even if you aren't staying there, and avail yourself of their services. The incredibly helpful concierge at the Grande Bretagne found us a doctor and then flagged a private taxi to take us there. One MRI, four stitches and two hours later, we emerged from the hospital.

It was now 11 p.m. We hadn't slept for 18 hours. Was my mother tired?

"I don't even have a headache!" she said. What might have ended our trip before it had even begun turned into the best cure for jet-lag. We went to a taverna and sipped ouzo, listening to live bouzouki music.

I knew travelling with my mother was going to be exhausting, but not quite in this way. She never stopped. In Rhodes, it was off to the whitewashed village of Lindos to visit some old friends of hers; in Marmaris, Turkey, we rented a jeep that broke down in the mountains. We hitched a ride back into town. There wasn't a musical performance, variety act or dinner reservation aboard ship that she wanted to miss.

A friend who helped me shop for the trip kept picking out cute little momma-boy sailor shirts for me to wear. Many of my friends thought it strange that I wanted to travel with my mother. I think it's strange that you wouldn't want to.

On our final night of sailing, the lights of the Ionic islands twinkling in the distance, my mother took my hand and said, "This is the best trip I've ever had."

Greece may be eternal, but we are not. Time passes. So next Mother's Day, take your mother on a trip. It's not as bad as it sounds. Promise.

David Layton is a Toronto-based freelance writer.
No wonder I want to repeat the whole trip again - but only if I can hold fast to my son's hand

The first time I sailed to Athens with my son, David, he was only a few months old.

We'd travelled there in an old Greek tub of a ship, our tiny cabin so close to the waterline that every time I opened the porthole, half the ocean sloshed in.

Four decades later, he's now taking me on a journey and it's on a cruise ship called The Silver Wind, where we each have a luxurious suite with glass doors opening onto a large veranda and a dressing room which was twice the size of my previous cabin.

Before we started our life of luxury, we'd decided to "slum" it for a few days in Athens, revisiting our old haunts.

I'd booked us into the Phaedra, a funky little hotel at the base of the Acropolis, where we'd always stayed and where David's favourite activity was riding the creaky old elevator up and down, to the intense annoyance of the two brothers, Stamatis and Yannis, who owned the hotel.

Despite our massive jet lag, we didn't want to waste a second and set off on a preliminary stroll.

As we negotiate the uneven cobblestones of the Plaka, I stumble and instinctively reach out to grab my son's arm, except that he had reached out to grab me, and in a split second I realize that, at 76, I am now the child and he the parent.

After a trip to the emergency ward and four stitches later, I cling to his arm like a limpet whenever he offers – which is all the time.

Even though I had dragged him all over the world when he was young, whether he wanted to go or not (and mostly he didn't), I'm lucky that he still wants to travel with me.

He's a great travelling companion, far more caring for my comfort than I am for his.

We have almost identical reactions to places and situations, both love going off the beaten path at the various ports of call.

We walk into whatever town we berth at, explore narrow alleyways, drink at local tavernas and then, at departure time, return to our floating palace, there to be enveloped in pampered luxury with only a gangplank connecting the two different worlds.

It never fails to astonish me that each morning we step out onto our verandas and there, like magic, another world appears in front of my eyes – Corfu, Rhodes, Kusadasi, Turkey, where we take the local bus to Ephesus and splurge on a private guide who is more intent on showing us the site of the brothels than the place where Paul preached to the Ephesians.

Later that evening, the cruise line arranges a special concert in one of the amphitheatres where, wrapped up in fleecy blankets, we listen to a string quartet, sip champagne and gaze out over the softly lit-up colonnades of one the most amazing ruins in the world.

Not that it was all paradisical. There were, of course, my constant motherly admonitions – "Make sure you're dressed warmly enough" ... "Don't lean too far over the railings" ... "That food always upsets your stomach."

I seem to have an endless supply of these shibboleths and can't stop trotting them out, even though the results are invariably counterproductive.

The bottom line, though, is that I love my son's company and, despite the mother-guilt, I console myself with the thought that I must have done something right.

When it comes time to disembark, I have a sudden panic attack at not being able to call room service at 3 a.m. if I have a sudden craving for Assiago Italiani or Bitter Chocolate Mousse.

Not that I did it, but I loved the idea that I could have done it.

No longer was there anyone hurrying across the dining room to assist me in peeling the foil off my yoghurt container or press exotic drinks on me at every turn.

No wonder I want to repeat the whole trip again – but only if I can hold fast to my son's hand.

Photo: Fond memories, past and present, of family trips to Greece that David Layton took with his mom, Aviva Whiteson.

Leonard Cohen tour 2009 and video!

2009-04-27T02:17:00.000-07:00

Great news to Cohen fans, Leonard Cohen is now touring after a hiatus for several years - soon to be 75-year-old Cohen is touring and I was lucky enough to see him in Seattle.

Bounding on the stage like a man 50 years younger, Cohen sang all of the favorites - Suzanne, Bird on the Wire, Closing Time, Dance Me to the End of Love and the heartbreaking Hallelujah.

I just know that Irving is watching from somewhere and I am sure if he were here he would celebrate by reading some poetry and sharing a bottle of wine.

Cheers Leonard - all of us Layton fans are thrilled to see how you are doing!

Irving Layton Avenue Unveiling, (and photo) The Chronicle, April 30th 2007

2007-05-04T23:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.westendchronicle.com
April 30th 2007

Côte St. Luc's mayor and city councillors will be officially dedicating a new street in honour of one of Canada's greatest poets — Irving Layton — this coming Sunday at 11 a.m.

The ceremony for Irving Layton Avenue, which is situated behind St. Richard's Church near Guelph Road and Parkhaven Avenue, will include the unveiling of the street sign, a plaque in honour of Layton, as well as speeches by Mayor Anthony Housefather and Layton's son, Max.

"Irving Layton lived for long periods of his life in Côte St. Luc," says Housefather. "He raised two of his children in our community and chose to spend his last years here. Layton was an extraordinarily prolific writer, poet and teacher. I am proud to dedicate this avenue to his memory."

Born in a the small Romanian town of Tirgui Neamt in 1912 to Jewish parents, Layton immigrated with his family to Canada in 1913, settling in Montreal. He grew up in a poor neighbourhood around St. Urbain Street and fell in love with poetry when he was in grade 10.

Layton spent most of his career as a teacher. He taught at Sir George Williams University, Herzliah High School and the Jewish Public Library. Many of his students have become prominent public figures, including Mount Royal MP Irwin Cotler and D'Arcy McGee MNA Lawrence Bergman, both of whom will speak on Sunday.

Layton published 50 books of poetry and prose between 1945 and 1992, many of which were translated into Greek, Italian, Spanish, Korean and other languages. His collection of poetry, A Red Carpet for the Sun, won the Governor General's Award in 1959. He was made an officer in the Order of Canada in 1976. He died on Jan. 4, 2006 at the age of 93.

Max Layton, who teaches school and is a musician in Toronto, says his father had a major impact on his life. "Because of my father, I am a better human being," says Max. He proudly describes his father as "amazingly well-read," with an astonishing breadth of interests and insights.

Max has vivid recollections of the family home during the 1950s — a farm house in the days just before Côte St. Luc was permanently transformed into a bedroom suburb. He remembers the parties his parents hosted and at which all kinds of artists turned up, including dancers, potters, sculptors and actors. Among these was Leonard Cohen, the burgeoning young poet and songwriter who was destined for world fame.

Max recalls how, at night, he would sneak out of his room and watch from the top of the stairs what the adults were up to. He describes Cohen as being like a "magnet attracting women." As soon as Cohen stepped into the room, women would swirl around.

"Leonard, in my opinion, is the greatest song writer of our times," says Max. "He's the 21st century Jewish psalmist. His songs for me were very religious, beautiful and memorable."

Please Join Us at the Irving Layton Avenue Dedication Ceremony Sunday, May 6th, 2007

2007-05-04T21:50:00.000-07:00

Greetings Irving Layton fans!

Please join Cote St. Luc Mayor Anthony Housefather, Councillor Mike Cohen, Mount Royal MP Irwin Cotler, Minister Lawrence Bergman, MNA for D’Arcy McGee and others in celebrating one of Canada's Greatest Poets, Irving Layton.

Irving Layton Avenue is located behind St. Richards Church and close to the corner of Guelph Rd. and Parkhaven Ave.

Copied below is the notice in the Cote St.Luc website which can be found at (http://www.cotesaintluc.org/en/node/305).

If you are able to attend, we would like to post your account and/or photographs, so please email us.

Thank you,

www.IrvingLayton.com

Irving Layton Ave. street dedication ceremony on Sunday

Start: 2007-05-06 11:00

End: 2007-05-06 13:00

Mayor Anthony Housefather and the Côte Saint-Luc City Council will
officially dedicate a new street in honour of the poet Irving Layton on
Sunday, May 6, 2007 at 11am on Irving Layton Ave.

The event is chaired by Councillor Mike Cohen, who is responsible
for toponymy in the city, and Councillor Mitchell Brownstein, who
represents the district where the street is located. Other participants
include École Maimonide, Max Layton—son of Irving Layton—other members
of the Layton family, Mount Royal MP Irwin Cotler, and D’Arcy McGee MNA
Lawrence Bergman.

All residents are invited to attend the street naming ceremony.

Irving Layton Ave. is situated behind
St. Richard’s Church and École Maimonide near Guelph Road and
Parkhaven Avenue.

Wikipedia - Irving Layton

2006-12-31T22:58:00.000-08:00

Irving Layton OC (March 12, 1912 – January 4, 2006) was a Canadian poet. He was known for his "tell it like it is" style which won him a wide following but also made enemies. As T. Jacobs notes in his biography (2001), Layton fought Puritanism throughout his life:

Layton's work had provided the bolt of lightening that was needed to split open the thin skin of conservatism and complacency in the poetry scene of the preceding century, allowing modern poetry to expose previously unseen richness and depth (Jacobs, 2001).

Biography

On March 12, 1912, born Israel Pincu Lazarovitch in Târgu Neamţ, a small town in Romania, to Jewish parents, Moses and Klara Lazarovitch, he emigrated with his family to Montreal, Quebec in 1913 and was forced to live in the impoverished St. Urbain Street neighbourhood, later made famous by Mordecai Richler in his novels. There Layton and his family (his father died when he was 13) faced daily struggles with, among others, Montreal's French Canadians, who were uncomfortable with the growing numbers of Jewish newcomers.^[1]

Layton graduated from Alexandra Elementary School and attended Baron Byng High School, where his life was changed when he was introduced to such poets as Alfred Lord Tennyson, Walter Scott, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe Shelley; the novelists Jane Austen and George Eliot; the essayists Francis Bacon, Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Johnson, and Jonathan Swift; and also William Shakespeare and Charles Darwin. He became very interested in politics and social theory and began reading Karl Marx and Nietzsche and also became politically active in socialist politics — so much so that he became a threat to the high school administration and was asked to leave before graduating. In light of his limited educational opportunities, with no high school diploma, and also due to limited finances, he enrolled in Macdonald College in 1934 and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture.

While in college, he was well known in artistic circles for his anti-bourgeois attitudes and his criticism of politics. He quickly found that his true interest was poetry, so pursued a career as a poet and became friends with the emerging young poets of his day, including fellow Canadian poets John Sutherland, Raymond Souster, and Louis Dudek. In the 1940s, Layton and his fellow Canadian poets rejected the older generation of poets, including Northrop Frye, and their efforts helped define the tone of the post-war generation poets in Canada. Essentially, they argued that modern poetry should set its own style, independent of British styles and influences, and should reflect the social realities of the day.

In 1936, Layton met Faye Lynch, whom he married in 1938. When Layton graduated from Macdonald College in 1939, he moved with Faye to Halifax where he worked odd jobs, including a stint as a Fuller Brush man. Soon disenchanted with his life, Layton decided, one evening, to return to Montreal. He began teaching English to recent immigrants to make ends meet and continued doing so for many years. Indecisive about his future and enraged by Hitler's violence toward Jews and destruction of European culture, Layton enlisted in the Canadian army in 1942. While serving at Petawawa, Layton met Betty Sutherland, an accomplished painter (and later poet), and a half-sister to actor Donald Sutherland. Layton soon divorced Faye and married Betty. They had two children together: Max Reuben (1946) and Naomi Parker (1950). In 1943, Layton was given an honourable discharge from the army and returned to Montreal.

Layton had become a strong socialist while at high school and joined the Young People's Socialist League. Later, he became active in the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. Because of this activity he was blacklisted and banned from entering the United States for the next two decades. While he continued to consider himself a Marxist, he became anti-Communist during the Cold War and broke with many on the left with his support of the Vietnam War. (Source: Toronto Star, January 5, 2006)

By the mid-1950s, Layton's activism and poetry had made him a staple on the CBC televised debating program "Fighting Words," where he earned a reputation as a formidable debater. The publication of "A Red Carpet For The Sun" in 1959 secured Layton's national reputation while the many books of poetry which followed eventually made him an internationally known celebrity.

In 1946, after receiving his M.A. in economics and political science from McGill (with a thesis on Harold Laski), Layton considered teaching as a career. In 1949, Layton began teaching English, history, and political science at the Jewish parochial high school, Herzliah (a branch of the United Talmud Torahs of Montreal). He was an influential teacher and many of his students became poets, writers, and artists. Among his students were poet/songwriter Leonard Cohen and television magnate Moses Znaimer. Layton continued to teach for the greater part of his life: as a teacher of modern English and American poetry at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) and as a tenured professor at Toronto's York University in the 1970s, as well as delivering many lectures and readings throughout Canada. Layton pursued his Ph.D. in 1948 though he abandoned it due to the demands of his already hectic professional life.

In the late 1950s, friends introduced Layton to Aviva Cantor (who had emigrated to Montreal from her native Australia in 1955). After several years of painful indecision, Layton and Betty separated and Layton moved in with Aviva. The two had a son, David, in 1964. Though Layton remained legally married to Betty, his relationship with Aviva lasted more than twenty years, only ending in the late 1970s when Aviva left.

It was in the immediate aftermath of this experience that Layton finally divorced Betty and, after a whirlwind courtship, married Harriet Bernstein, a former student. In 1981, a daughter, Samantha Clara, was born. The marriage was short-lived, however, and ended in a bitterly contested divorce. Layton then turned to his housekeeper, Anna (Annette) Pottier, who, although 48 years his junior, became his fifth and last "wife". They lived in the middle-class Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood of Montreal from 1983 until 1994 when Layton was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He died at the Maimonides Geriatric Centre in Montreal at the age of 93 on January 4, 2006.

Throughout the 1950s and on into the 1980s, Layton travelled widely abroad and became especially popular in South Korea and Italy, and in 1981 these two nations nominated him for the Nobel Prize for Literature. (The prize that year was instead awarded to novelist Gabriel García Márquez.) Among his many awards during his career was the Governor-General's Award for A Red Carpet for the Sun in 1959. In 1976 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Leonard Cohen once said of him, "I taught him how to dress, and he taught me how to live forever."

Layton is remembered by many as one of the first Canadian rebels of poetry, politics, and philosophy. Many believe he legitimately internationalized himself and even other Canadian poets through his coldness toward his own Canadianness. At Layton's funeral, Leonard Cohen and David Solway expressed, in their eulogies, that Layton was a revolutionary thinker who was radical, but realistic. All the eulogists agreed he was a great poet, arguably the first great poet of Canada. He is considered Leonard Cohen's literary -- and some would argue spiritual --guru.

Works & Awards

He is remembered in the Canadian literature for having written 40 poetry and prose books through his career. Layton was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize (1982), but was never awarded one by the time of his death. He was the first non-Italian to be awarded the Petrarch Award for Poetry, an Italian award to recognize a poet's talent.^[1]

Works

Now Is The Place — 1948
The Black Huntsmen: Poems — 1951
Love the Conqueror Worm — 1953
The Long Pea-Shooter — 1954
In the Midst of My Fever — 1954
The Blue Propeller — 1955
The Cold Green Element — 1955
The Bull Calf and Other Poems — 1956
The Improved Binoculars: Selected Poems — 1956
Music on a Kazoo — 1956
A Laughter in the Mind — 1959
A Red Carpet for the Sun — 1960
The Swinging Flesh — 1961
Balls for a One-Armed Juggler — 1963
The Laughing Rooster — 1964
Collected Poems — 1965
Periods of the Moon: Poems — 1967
The Shattered Plinths — 1968
Selected Poems — 1969
The Whole Bloody Bird — 1969
Poems to Color — 1970
Nailpolish — 1971
The Collected Poems of Irving Layton — 1971
Lovers and Lesser Men — 1972
The Pole-Vaulter — 1974
Seventy-five Greek Poems, 1951-1974 — 1974
The Darkening Fire: Selected Poems, 1945-1968 — 1975
The Unwavering Eye: Selected Poems, 1969-1975 — 1975
The Uncollected Poems of Irving Layton: 1936-59 — 1976
For my Brother Jesus — 1976
The Selected Poems of Irving Layton — 1977
The Covenant — 1977
The Tightrope Dancer — 1979
Droppings from Heaven — 1979
The Tamed Puma — 1979
For My Neighbours in Hell — 1980
Europe And Other Bad News — 1981
A Wild Peculiar Joy: Selected Poems, 1945-82 — 1982
Shadows on the Ground: A Portfolio — 1982
The Gucci Bag — 1983
The Love Poems of Irving Layton: With Reverence & Delight — 1984
Fortunate Exile — 1987
Final Reckoning: Poems, 1982-1986 — 1987
Wild Gooseberries: The Selected Letters of Irving Layton — 1989
Irving Layton and Robert Creeley: The Complete Correspondence, 1953-1978 — 1990
Dance With Desire: Selected Love Poems — 1992

Notable Canadian(s), Canada.com, Dec 29 06

2006-12-31T14:36:00.000-08:00

Irving Layton, Jane Jacobs, Ken Thomson among Canadians who died in 2006

Eric Shackleton, Canadian Press
Friday, December 29, 2006
http://www.canada.com

(CP) - Some notable Canadians who died in 2006:

January

Irving Layton, 93 - Nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in Literature and named to the Order of Canada, he published more than 40 books of poetry and prose over more than five decades.

Pierre Grondin, 80 - Cardiovascular surgeon who performed Canada's first successful heart transplant operation in Montreal in May 1968.

2006 List, EYE Weekly, Dec 28 06

2006-12-31T14:29:00.000-08:00

EYE Weekly

December 28. 2006
http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_12.28.06/features/feature_1.php

January

Sainte-Irving, blog entry by George, Aug 16 06

2006-09-10T22:36:00.000-07:00

http://www.bookninja.com/?p=1318
Blog entry Aug 16 06
By George

The best way to honour Irving Layton is to name a street in a banal, non-Montreal bedroom suburb subdivision after him — I’m sure he’d appreciate that — Irving would want Sainte-Catherine renamed Sainte-Irving.

2 comments on “Summer reno rundown”

1. B.G. Rotchin says:
August 16th, 2006 at 10:31 am

Sorry George, Cote St-Luc is not “a banal, non-Montreal bedroom suburb subdivision” but a centrally colcated community on the island of Montreal where Layton lived in the 50’s and raised his family.
2. George says:
August 16th, 2006 at 10:34 am

Busted.

Street Naming, League of Cdn Poets, Aug 06

2006-09-10T22:05:00.000-07:00

http://www.poets.ca/index.html
STREET TO HONOUR POET IRVING LAYTON

The late Montreal poet Irving Layton will have a street in the Montreal borough of Côte St. Luc named in his honour. Irving Layton Ave. will be the name of a new residential road off Midway Ave. near Parkhaven Ave., according to mayor of Côte St. Luc Anthony Housefather. "There is an important local connection. We tend to name streets after people who are locally known or internationally known," Housefather said. A street dedication ceremony will take place in late fall, according to Housefather. Members of Layton's family and Côte St. Luc residents will be invited to witness the unveiling of the new street sign. For full Montreal Gazette article click here.

CULTURE MONTRÉAL NEWSLETTER, Jan 17 06

2006-09-10T21:59:00.000-07:00

http://www.culturemontreal.ca/lettreinfo/060117_newsletter.htm
CULTURE MONTRÉAL NEWSLETTER
January 17, 2006
Irving Layton (1912-2006)

Israel Pincu Lazarovitch, a.k.a. Irving Layton, earned local fame at birth as he was born naturally circumcised, which orthodox Jews believe is a mark of the Messiah. Born in Romania, he immigrated to Montréal with his family when he was a year old. A poet, novelist and essayist, Layton is the most well known of a group of Montréal poets who broke from Romantic poetry in the 1940s. His work is marked by great sensitivity and contempt for what he considered the hypocrisy of society. Among the many publications of this prolific writer is A Red Carpet for the Sun (1959), which won a Governor General’s Literary Award. In 1981, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Irving Layton taught extensively throughout his life and drew large audiences to his lectures and talks. He died in Montréal on January 4, 2006, at the age of 93.

Aislin Cartoon, Montreal Gazette, Aug 16 06

2006-09-10T21:35:00.000-07:00

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/aislin/0816.html
Aislin cartoon
August 16 Montreal Gazette

Cartoon Sparks Anger, by M. Barry, West End Chronicle, Aug 24 06

2006-09-10T21:28:00.000-07:00

http://www.westendchronicle.com
The Chronicle
By MARTIN C. BARRY

Cartoon sparks anger among Layton associates
Aislin cartoon a ‘cheap shot’, says woman who cared for Layton at Maimonides

PHOTO:
Courtesy, Rami Negev Standing before a template of the new bilingual street sign for Irving Layton Avenue are (left to right) councillors Allan J. Levine, Ruth Kovac, Mike Cohen, Mayor Anthony Housefather and Director of Library Services Tanya Abramovitch. In the back row are: councillors Sam Goldbloom, Dida Berku and Acting City Manager Ken Lerner.

A cartoon ridiculing the designation of a Côte St. Luc street in honour of celebrated poet and former resident Irving Layton has aroused the anger of two longtime Layton associates.

“Displeasure is a mild word,” said Musia Schwartz, who was mandated to attend to many of Layton’s needs at the Maimonides Geriatric Centre in Côte St. Luc during the last seven years of his life. Schwartz was reacting to an Aislin editorial cartoon, published in The Gazette last week.

In it, a street post is shown, on top of which are two signs bearing the names ‘Côte St. Luc’ and ‘Lust’ — a reference to a recurring erotic theme in Layton’s earlier work. To Schwartz, however, it was a cheap shot. In addition, she said the Montreal daily heavily edited a letter she submitted to them.

“Irreverence is one thing,” Schwartz said in an interview. But “I mean, please, ‘lust.’ ... I know he (Aislin) is entitled to his satires and the rest of it, but this is such gratuitous mockery and so unimaginative.

“Layton would really chuckle at the thought that he’s being remembered for this,” she added. But “it’s the ungenerosity of spirit ... This sort of idiotic cliché that I thought that now that he’s dead would be over.”

Anna Pottier, Layton’s widow from his last marriage, agreed wholeheartedly. “There is so much more to Irving than that hoary old stereotype, which is so passé,” she said in an e-mail. “Granted, back two or three decades ago, Irving didn’t mind putting that image out there — with the hope that, once having gotten people’s attention, they would turn to the work ... For Aislin to try and limit Irving to that old cliché shows how out-of-synch Aislin is.”

Last week, Côte St. Luc city council adopted a resolution to name a new residential street after Layton, who died last January at the age of 93. Irving Layton Avenue will be situated behind St. Richard’s Church and Maimonide School, bordering Guelph Road, Parkhaven Avenue and Chamberland Crescent. Twelve new homes are presently under construction and are expected to be ready for occupancy in early winter.

An extraordinarily prolific writer and poet, Layton published 50 books between 1945 and 1992. His poetry had a lyrical and romantic style. He taught at Concordia University (then Sir George Williams) from 1950 to 1964, and returned in 1989 for a year as writer-in-residence.

“In terms of toponomy it is our objective to recognize individuals with a direct connection to Côte St. Luc, who in their lifetime made significant contributions to both society and their community,” said Councillor Mike Cohen, who chairs the city’s toponomy commission.

“We are proud that Irving Layton lived for long periods of his life in Côte St. Luc, brought up two of his children in our community and spent his last years here,” added Mayor Anthony Housefather.

Cartoon Disappoints by B. Baum, Canada.com, Aug 17 06

2006-09-10T21:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette
Montreal Gazette
Letter
Published: Thursday, August 17, 2006

I found the Aislin cartoon "dissing" Irving Layton (Gazette, Aug. 16) DISappointing, DISrespectful, DISingenuous and DISturbing.

The late poet was a major contributor to the literary culture of Montreal, Quebec and Canada, and I find it repugnant to see a mockery made of his memory.

Barbara Baum

Montreal

Fitting Tribute, the Montreal Gazette, Aug 15 06

2006-09-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette
Montreal Gazette
KRISTIN MORENCY, IRWIN BLOCK of The Gazette contributed to this report, The Gazette
Published: Thursday, August 17, 2006

The naming of a new avenue in Cote St. Luc after the late Montreal poet Irving Layton is a fitting tribute to one of Canada's greatest writers, local poet and essayist David Solway says.

"I knew him for for many years and considered him my uncle," Solway said yesterday at his home in Hudson.

"I would say Irving invented poetry for Canada, and he helped put Montreal on the map."

Layton, his disciple Leonard Cohen, and A.M. Klein before them, "made Canadian poetry," Solway said.

"Better to name a street after a poet than a politician or real-estate developer," he said.

Irving Layton Ave. will be a new residential thoroughfare off Midway Ave., near Parkhaven Ave., Cote St. Luc Mayor Anthony Housefather said.

"Irving Layton is an internationally renowned author and poet who spent much of his life in Cote St. Luc," the mayor said.

"There is an important local connection. We tend to name streets after people who are locally known or internationally known," Housefather added.

"We looked at various names, including (those of) other prominent local residents recently deceased, and decided on (Layton)."

A dedication ceremony is to take place in the late fall, Housefather said.

Members of Layton's family and Cote St. Luc residents will be invited to witness the unveiling of the new street sign.

Layton's family and friends will be welcome to say a few words about him at the ceremony, Housefather added.

Layton died Jan. 4 at the age of 93 after a five-year battle with Alzheimer's disease.

He spent the last years of his life at the Maimonides Geriatric Centre in Cote St. Luc.

Layton wrote more than 50 books of poetry and remains one of Canada's most prolific and revered writers.

kmorency@thegazette.canwest.com

Irving Layton Avenue, Montreal Gazette, Aug 15 06

2006-09-10T21:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette
The Montreal Gazette
Published: Tuesday, August 15, 2006

The late Montreal poet Irving Layton will have a Côte St. Luc street named in his honour. Irving Layton Ave. will be the name of a new residential road off Midway Ave. near Parkhaven Ave., according to mayor of Côte St. Luc Anthony Housefather.

"Irving Layton is an internationally renowned author and poet who spent much of his life in Côte St. Luc," Housefather said.

"There is an important local connection. We tend to name streets after people who are locally known or internationally known," he added.

A street dedication ceremony will take place in late fall, according to Housefather.

Members of Layton’s family and Côte St. Luc residents will be invited to witness the unveiling of the new street sign.

Street Naming, Waterloo Record, Aug 18 06

2006-09-10T21:15:00.000-07:00

https://secure.therecord.com
The Waterloo Record
Poet Irving Layton to have street named for him

Legendary Montreal poet Irving Layton will have a street named for him in his old neighbourhood in the city of Côte Saint-Luc.

Council Monday night voted to name a street that is still being built Irving Layton Avenue.

Layton died Jan. 4 at a Montreal residence for seniors. He had been battling Alzheimer's disease for some time. The author of more than 40 books of poetry and essays was widely considered one of English Canada's pre-eminent poets.

He was once nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but was beaten out by Gabriel García Márquez, a Colombian novelist.

The director of the Eleanor London Côte Saint-Luc Public Library, Tanya Abramovitch, said Tuesday people still remember him and his regular visits to the library.

"They loved the sound of his voice, when he used to talk. So all these women used to come to the library just so they could listen to him speak.

"It's important to acknowledge people who have come from Côte Saint-Luc, especially writers who are internationally known," Abramovitch said.

Mayor Anthony Housefather pointed out that Layton developed his international reputation while living in the city.

"I think that brings pride not only to Côte Saint-Luc, but to all of the Greater Montreal Island."

Montreal Street Named After Layton, CBC, Aug 15 06

2006-09-10T21:12:00.000-07:00

CBC.ca/CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2006/08/15/layton-avenue.html
Poet Irving Layton to have street named for him
Last Updated: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 | 4:46 PM ET

Legendary Montreal poet Irving Layton will have a street named for him in his old neighbourhood in the city of Côte Saint-Luc.

Council Monday night voted to name a street that is still being built Irving Layton Avenue.

Layton died Jan. 4 at a Montreal residence for seniors. He had been battling Alzheimer's disease for some time. The author of more than 40 books of poetry and essays was widely considered one of English Canada's pre-eminent poets.

He was once nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but was beaten out by Gabriel García Márquez, a Colombian novelist.

The director of the Eleanor London Côte Saint-Luc Public Library, Tanya Abramovitch, said Tuesday people still remember him and his regular visits to the library.

"They loved the sound of his voice, when he used to talk. So all these women used to come to the library just so they could listen to him speak.

"It's important to acknowledge people who have come from Côte Saint-Luc, especially writers who are internationally known," Abramovitch said.

Mayor Anthony Housefather pointed out that Layton developed his international reputation while living in the city.

"I think that brings pride not only to Côte Saint-Luc, but to all of the Greater Montreal Island."

A Genius by Joshers Aug 31 06

2006-09-10T21:08:00.000-07:00

Layton was a fucking magician. Layton was a god damn genius. Layton was the penis of canada. Layton was a nome damn i wish i could spell. Layton used language that was complex, eloquent, musical, rhythmical, like nobody else around.
Layton was the kind of guy you despise. But Keep inviting, keep listening.
Layton was really a newsboy with the features of a gargoyle. The night before his death, the snow flakes were fat as globs of cholestrol, on the streets of Ottawa, so beautiful.

First Cdn Poet Translated into Italian, J Pivato, Sept 2 06

2006-09-10T21:07:00.000-07:00

Thank you Giorgio for your kind words
about Irving Layton. You remind me
of this poet who taught me creative
writing at York University in 1970.
As you point out he was the first
Canadian poet translated into Italian.
He did much to promote Canadian Literature and identity.

It is appropriate then that you,
Poet Laureat of Toronto, should make
us remember this poet from Montreal.
-- Joseph Pivato, Edmonton

Ltyon mentioned in Callaghan's book, The Toronto Star, July 2 06

2006-09-05T21:14:00.000-07:00

His lasting contribution
ANTHOLOGY Non-fiction pieces still shine
And storytelling is always journalism
By Susan Walker
July 2 2006
http://www.thestar.com

Raise You Ten: Essays and Encounters
1964-2004, Vol. Two
by Barry Callaghan
McArthur & Co.,
371 pages, $34.95

Much has been written — nearly all of it irrefutable — about Barry Callaghan's qualifications as a "man of letters." His bibliography lists two books of short stories, two novels, five books of poetry, a memoir, and nine translations of some very fine poets. No plays are cited, but that doesn't mean he hasn't written one. And let's not forget literary service to the many authors he has published through his Exile operations.

Not that he has spread himself thin, but it is Callaghan's non-fiction — his essays, critical reviews, profiles and straight reporting — that quite possibly have made his most lasting contribution to Canadian letters. Raise You Ten, the second volume of Essays and Encounters 1964-2004, presents some of the most engaging writing of its kind to be found anywhere in English Canada. He dedicates this volume to journalist Ron Haggart, and to novelist William Kennedy. Tellingly, he says Kennedy "as a reporter, never forgot that journalism is storytelling and as a storyteller, never forgot that he was a reporter."

Add to Callaghan's credentials: an aphorist, a master of the bon mot.

He applies these diverse talents in refreshingly diverse ways. When encountering another writer, Callaghan steeps his observations in the language of that writer. He tells a non-fiction story that might easily be fiction, and often takes poetic liberties. Yet for those who know his subjects, he captures them as firmly as butterflies pinned to a corkboard.

A long piece on Irving Layton, published in Saturday Night in 1972, but revised as is Callaghan's unusual practice, contains big chunks of poetry — not as examples, but as narrative. Callaghan places himself in the story, giving himself an equal weight, critiquing the poetry and reflecting Layton's character in his prose. "But his seas are full of ghosts — the ghosts of the women he has impaled on a rumpled bed, the ghosts of Hitler's henchmen who still haunt him, the skeletons of grief-crazed Jewesses who still stalk him ..."

Austin Clarke, a Callaghan chum, comes in for good-natured teasing in "Austin Clarke: Riding the Trane," published in the National Post in 1999. Here as well, there are echoes of Clarke in the writing. Choosing the novelist's love of John Coltrane's jazz as a metaphor for the place where the Austin known as "Tom" in Barbados meets the "decorous man, a donnish man who likes to take a pew at high mass on Sunday at the Anglican cathedral," Callaghan crafts a telling portrait.

A prominent photographer gets a snapshot: "Cecil Beaton, with razor-cut puffs of white hair over his ears, his lips pursed, is a figure of a certain elegance, a man of refeened urbanity who has cast his eye upon the old rich, the industrious rich, and those whom Scott Fitzgerald described as the coastal spew of Europe — the nouveaux riches."

Leon Rooke is well served in a delightful meta-fictional piece: "A Performance of The Exile at Café Tristan Bernard."

There are crosscurrents in these essays, reviews, profiles and poems. Callaghan combines literary, political and historical analysis in "Churchill the Crisper," a cogently argued piece that starts out with Rolf Hochhuth's play about Churchill, The Soldiers, and takes us into the wartime PM's moral position in history. Related essays present General Wladyslaw Sikorski, exiled Polish premier during World War II, and, in "Flowers for the Forgotten," the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe.

Callaghan's pet subjects are not hard to spot. The grandson of an Irishman, the son of Morley Callaghan, he has never lost a sense of his Irishness and his Roman Catholic heritage. You can see it in his excellent Saturday Night profile of a former federal cabinet minister, "The Public Ordeal of Bryce Mackasey." The story begins on the grubby winter shores of Grosse-Île in the St. Lawrence River, where the Irish immigrants landed in the 19th century. Some were buried there, if the passage to Canada proved too much for them. Callaghan pitches the story as a meeting between two sons of Ireland, but takes it a lot farther than that with references to Mackasey's complex relationships with Trudeau, Mulroney, et al. One of the reasons this volume makes such good reading is that many of Callaghan's discussions are still in the air. Black Americans — activists, jazz artists, writers — have always been a Callaghan topic. In two pieces especially, an encounter with playwright LeRoi Jones, and "Mojo," written about the politics of the Black Panthers, Angela Davis and the literature of revolution, Callaghan writes with precision, style and passion. He even skewers Tom Wolfe's manic piece on radical chic in support of the Panthers.

No collection of pieces such as this would bear the name Callaghan if it didn't have a reference to horse racing, and betting on the ponies. "Year of the Horse" tells how it all began.

He's not finished yet, having promised his publisher a third and fourth volume to add to what is already a collection of non-fiction to put your stake on.

Waiting for the Messiah re-released, Winnipeg Free Press, June 6 06

2006-06-25T23:59:00.000-07:00

Winnipeg Free Press Live
http://www.winnipegfreepress2.com/blogs/walker/?p=3
June 6, 2006

Maiden voyage in the blogosphere
by Morley Walker

I see that McClelland & Stewart has re-released the 1985 memoir by the poet Irving Layton, Waiting for the Messiah.

The timing isn’t bad given that the new collection by his acolyte Leonard Cohen, Book of Longing, is currently No. 1 on many Canadian bestseller lists.

Layton died last January in Montreal after a long and decline caused by Alzheimer’s.

No doubt if he were around, he’d be busting a gut with pride over Lenny’s current time in the spotlight. Either that or he’d be green with jealousy.

So I flip to the index of the Waiting For Messiah to find a particularly telling anecdote about the two of them.

What’s this? Cohen doesn’t even get a mention. And this after — well before, really — Lenny has such nice things to say about his master in Book of Longing.

For shame. Couldn’t M&S have added something posthumously?

Layton poem, blog entry, June 20 06

2006-06-25T23:50:00.000-07:00

http://black-app.livejournal.com/133691.html
by Black-app

The Bull Calf
The thing could barely stand. Yet taken
from his mother and the barn smells
he still impressed with his pride,
with the promise of sovereignity in the way
his head moved to take us in.
The fierce sunlight tugging the maize from the ground
liked at his shapely flanks.
He was too young for all that pride.
I thought of the deposed Richard II.

"No money in bull calves," Freeman had said.
The visiting clergyman rubbed the nostrils
now snuffing pathetically at the windless day.
"A pity," he sighed.
My gaze slipped off his hat toward the empty sky
that circled over the black knot of men,
over us and the calf waiting for the first blow.

Struck,
the bull calf drew in his thin forelegs
as if gathering strength for a mad rush…
tottered…raised his darkening eyes to us,
and I saw we were at the far end
of his frightened look, growing smaller and smaller
till we were only the ponderous mallet
that flicked his bleeding ear
and pushed him over on his side, stiffly,
like a block of wood.

Below the hill's crest
the river snuffled on the improvised beach.
We dug a deep pit and threw the dead calf into it.
It made a wet sound, a sepulchral gurgle,
as the warm sides bulged and flattened.
Settled, the bull calf lay as if asleep,
one foreleg over the other,
bereft of pride and so beautiful now,
without movement, perfectly still in the cool pit,
I turned away and wept.

Irving Layton

Borrowed inspiration and Layton poem, blog entry, June 23 06

2006-06-25T23:47:00.000-07:00

http://there-were-no-signs.blogspot.com/2006/06/more-appropriate-little-late.html

Friday, June 23, 2006
More appropriate, a little late
I suppose I should have made this poem my first entry, as I borrowed the name of this blog from it. Oh, well. Here's

There Were No Signs
By Irving Layton

By walking I found out
Where I was going.

By intensely hating, how to love.
By loving, whom and what to love.

By grieving, how to laugh from the belly.

Out of infirmity, I have built strength.
Out of untruth, truth.
From hypocrisy, I wove directness.

Almost now I know who I am.
Almost I have the boldness to be that man.

Another step
And I shall be where I started from.

posted by Emily at 8:41 PM
0 Comments:

Rejoice Rejoice, blog entry, Jan 8 06

2006-06-25T23:39:00.000-07:00

http://soferet.blogspot.com/2006/01/israel-ben-moshe-ve-keine.html
ISRAEL BEN MOSHE VE-KEINE
בס"ד
9th of Tevet

Irving Layton is dead. Leonard Cohen, who was one of his pall bearers & proteges, spoke of this man who inspired his own art with great affection.

"There is Irving Layton, & then there are the rest of us", he said. "He is our greatest poet, our greatest champion of poetry".

Another great Canadian, another great Jew, we say goodbye to. A controversial man who grew up in the same Montreal slums as Mordecai Richler. A man who shocked the puritanical public out of its slumber with his free sexual prophecies on paper. & no wonder. He had been born "naturally circumcised", without a foreskin, a traditional mark of the Messiah.

Instead of saving the World, however, he grew up to transform Western social consciousness & artistic expression, almost winning a Nobel Prize for Literature.

"...there is no pain in the graveyard...rejoice...rejoice..."

Good night, Irving. Sleep well.