Inspirational Quotes by Irving Layton (Canadian Poet)

Irving Layton (1912–2006,) originally Israel Pincu Lazarovitch, was a Romanian-born Canadian poet. Best known for his firebrand style, he published more than 40 books of poetry and prose over more than five decades.

Born to Jewish parents in Târgu Neamţ, Romania, Layton’s family immigrated to Montreal when Layton was an infant. He attended Montreal’s Macdonald College and McGill University. While a student at MacDonald College, his socialist writing led to him being blacklisted from entering the United States for almost 15 years.

After serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II, Layton worked as a teacher and lecturer in Montreal 1945–60. He later was a professor of literature at York University in Toronto 1970–78. There, his students included the poet and singer Leonard Cohen and the media magnate Moses Znaimer.

Layton’s poems, lyrical and romantic in tone and classical in form, developed from the early descriptive poetry collected in Here and Now (1945) and Now Is the Place (1948) into the fierce and denunciatory expressions of his hatred of the bourgeoisie and all other enemies of spontaneity contained in In the Midst of My Fever (1954) and The Cold Green Element (1955.)

Often controversial, Layton’s anti-bourgeois attitude earned him many admirers and many detractors. He believed that poets should “disturb and discomfort” readers. He later turned from social satire to concern for the universal human condition—e.g., A Red Carpet for the Sun (1959,) The Swinging Flesh (1961,) Balls for a One-Armed Juggler (1963,) For My Brother Jesus (1976,) For My Neighbours in Hell (1980,) and Europe and Other Bad News (1981.) Collected Poems (1965) was revised in 1971.

Layton also published volumes of prose containing assortments of essays, stories, and letters, including Engagements (1972) and Taking Sides (1978.) He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982 and 1983.

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