Irving Layton
Irving Layton was a prominent Canadian poet, born on March 12, 1912, in Neamtz, Romania, and immigrated to Canada as an infant. He grew up in Montreal, where he was influenced by his Jewish heritage and the literary landscape of the time. Layton began writing poetry at a young age, eventually becoming Canada's most prolific poet. His early works, although not widely recognized, laid the groundwork for a successful career that included the critically acclaimed collection "A Red Carpet for the Sun," which won the Governor-General's Award in 1959.
With a diverse educational background, Layton held various teaching positions, including at Sir George Williams University and York University, where he fostered a love for poetry among his students. His writing was noted for its bold exploration of themes such as individuality, spirituality, and sexuality, often drawing comparisons to iconic poets like William Blake and Walt Whitman. Throughout his life, Layton experienced several marriages and familial relationships that influenced his poetic voice. Even into his later years, he continued to publish extensively, tackling profound issues of the twentieth century, including the Holocaust. Layton’s contributions to Canadian literature remain significant, marking him as a controversial yet influential figure in the literary world.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Irving Layton
Poet
- Born: March 12, 1912
- Birthplace: Tîrgu Neamţ, Romania
- Died: January 4, 2006
- Place of death: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Biography
Although he was born Irving Peter Lazarovitch in Neamtz, Romania, on March 12, 1912, Layton immigrated to Canada at the age of one with his Jewish parents, eventually settling in Montreal. He later legally changed his name. He was the son of Moses Lazarovitch, a religious man, and Keine (Moscovitch) Lazarovitch; his mother supported the family by running a small grocery store.
Canada’s most prolific poet, Irving Layton wrote his first poem at age eleven, inspired by Miss Benjamin, his sixth- grade teacher, to whom he later dedicated Dance with Desire (1986), a collection of love poetry. He attended Macdonald College in Montreal, studying agriculture and economics, earning a bachelor’s of science degree in 1939. While still a student, he married Faye Lynch in 1938, but this first union was short-lived.
During World War II, from 1942 to 1943, Layton served in the artillery for the Canadian army, and during his enlistment he coedited the literary journal First Statement, which published some of his earliest poems. (That journal later merged with Preview to become the Northern Review.) While lecturing at the Jewish Public Library from 1943 to 1958, Layton privately published his first volume of poetry, Here and Now in 1945. Also in 1945, Layton joined the faculty at Herziliah High School in Montreal, where he taught until 1960.
In 1946, he completed a master’s degree in economics and political science at McGill University, the same year he divorced Lynch and married Frances Sutherland. They subsequently had a daughter, Naomi, and a son, Max, and Layton later addressed sensitive lyric poems to both of these children, although their parents’ union was another brief marriage. In 1949, Layton began teaching as a part-time lecturer in the English department at Sir George Williams University (1949-1965), where he was later poet-in-residence from 1965 to1969.
Layton’s earliest volumes of poetry received only minimal attention, but A Red Carpet for the Sun (1959), which included some of his best-known poems from previous volumes, was his first major success, earning popular acclaim and the Governor-General’s Award for poetry in 1959. After Layton and Sutherland divorced, in 1961, he married the writer Aviva Cantor, with whom he had one son, David, but that marriage was later dissolved. While lecturing at Williams University during the 1960’s, Layton became known for his outspoken style and contentious attitude, publishing works that continued to explore the limits of Canadian poetry throughout the 1970’s.
While his work has been compared to William Blake and Walt Whitman, in that he celebrates the individual and examines the ties between physicality and spirituality, Layton is also credited with expanding Canadian literary standards involving sexually explicit imagery. From 1969 to 1970, Layton served as poet-in-residence at the University of Guelph, and in 1970 he was professor of English at York University in Toronto. He remained at York until he retired in 1978 in order to write full time. That same year he married Harriet Bernstein, and with her had another daughter, Samantha.
Early in the 1980’s, Layton produced numerous volumes, enjoying celebrity status in Canada and abroad and receiving two consecutive nominations (in 1982 and 1983) for the Nobel Prize for Literature. In late 1983, Layton and Bernstein divorced, and he married Anna Pottier the next year. Still publishing while in his seventies, Layton was often criticized for publishing everything he ever wrote, but even his most vocal critics acknowledge the significance of his impact on Canadian literature and the importance of his works as an exploration of the evils of the twentieth century, such as the Holocaust.