Irving Layton Summary

Irving Layton is Canada's most prolific and pugnacious poet and has sustained a powerful if not to say domineering position in Canadian letters for over forty-five years. In the nearly fifty books he ... Read more

In the following interview, conducted on December 10, 1977, Layton discusses social and religious history and ideas; the state of poetry in Canada; and his public image. [Sherman]: Throughout much ... Read more

In the following review, Harding characterizes Layton's political viewpoints in Taking Sides as troublesome and bewildering, attributing the former to naiveté and the latter to poor edit... Read more

In the following essay, Wiens traces Layton's relationship with Canadian writer Desmond Pacey in their unpublished correspondence spanning nearly two decades. Wiens focuses on Pacey's cr... Read more

In the following essay, Lewis examines the attitudes toward women in the themes, images, and literary strategies of Layton's love poetry, comparing the sexist, misogynistic, and anti-feminist q... Read more

In the following essay, Bernstein analyzes similarities between the rhetoric of contemporary Israeli society and the themes of Fortunate Exile, highlighting the pessimistic relationship between post-1... Read more

In the following review, Irmscher comments on two different biographies of William Carlos Williams before highlighting the contents of Irving Layton and Robert Creeley: The Complete Correspondence, a ... Read more

In the following essay, Trehearne outlines the professional significance of “Whatever Else Poetry Is Freedom” in Layton's career, highlighting the strategies and motives underlyin... Read more

In the following review, Ravvin questions why Dance with Desire, a collection with almost the same contents as a volume released earlier, was published as a separate work. Ravvin also challenges the c... Read more

In the following essay, Flynn recounts Layton's presence at a dinner party they both attended. “Do you know what the problem with Leonard Cohen is?” I'd heard this qu... Read more

Critical Essay by A.j.m. Smith In 1954 Irving Layton published two volumes of verse that stood out as remarkable in a year that was distinguished by several books of more than usual merit…. On... Read more

Critical Essay by Louis Dudek I must confess that for the past three or four years I've been unable to read anything by Irving Layton, at any rate not without a certain feeling of sour taste a... Read more

Critical Essay by Munro Beattie [Irving Layton's] three principal gifts are a matchless ease and spontaneity of phrasing, an acute ear for line and stanza cadences, and the power to declare hi... Read more