Writing Poetry Can Endanger Your Health - Chapter 23, Section Two

The Poet As Celebrity and Teacher - The Life of Irving Layton by Dave Jaffe. Section Two.


    Irving Layton lived through the Great Depression of the 1930's but it was tough for him and millions of other Canadians. In the first of his many marriages and liasons he met and wed Faye Lynch, She helped him with money, food and company. With her help he graduated from MacDonald College with a B.A.
    By now in the late 1940's, Layton had been in the army and then been discharged. He had survived the Great Depression and the Second World War. Now he started to apply himself to writing poetry. He also battled in print and in person with many people.
      "Canada has produced nothing," Borges the Argentine novelist said in effect about Canada's culture. Yet Layton and his generation proved Borges wrong. Already an older group of poets like Frank Scott and others had come along to write modern poetry. Layton, Louis Dudek and poets from the poorer parts of Canada started to write more vigorous poetry. This helped put Canada on the cultural map at a time when Canadian novels were relatively few in number.
    "They dance best who dance with desire," Layton wrote in his poem called 'Red Carpet For the Sun'. Layton's poetry was full of passion and energy. He ended up teaching at Herzliah Junior High School, a private school for Jewish children in Montreal. Layton had now got an M.A. degree in political science from McGill University. Many of Layton's students at Herzliah enjoyed Layton's enthusiasm for learning and his poetic gifts.Some of his students including David Solway, David Slabotsky, Seymour Mayne and Henry Moscovitch carved out careers as poets.  Moscovitch's career was unfortunately halted by mental illness.
     Layton also taught the future media mogul Moses Znaimer and the Liberal politician Irwin Cotler. Laytion didn't teach another rising poet named Leonard Cohen. But the two men always got on well together. Layton was later fired from Herzliah High but this didn't slow down his poetry output. In the 1950's, Layton moved into the forefront of  Canadian poetry. A new affluence spread across Canada. Tens off thousands of young Canadians flooded into new universities. A newly-formed Canada Council sponsored poetry readings at universities. Layton appeared at many of these readings and his fame grew.
     Layton left Faye for Betty Sutherland, a fine artist and a talented one. Then later on he took up with Aviva Cantor then left her for Harriet Bernstein, a rich woman. This marriage didn't lasts long. Then he hooked up with Anna Poirier, a transplanted and very young Nova Scotian. Layton had four children  and he also had other lovers besides his wives.
     From the 1950's to the 1970's, Layton wrote some very fine poetry. Later I think his poetry declined. Cultural revolutions and political rebellions swept across the world in the late 1960's and 1970's. "Kill your parents," the yippie revolutionary Jerry Rubin told the youth of North America. Casual sex, casual drug use, casual dress and anti-war marches became the order of the day. Some youth sought enlightenment in Buddhism, other eastern religions and New Age philosophy.
    Due to these upheavals and his age, Layton started to seem very conservative. He supported the U.S. war in Vietnam and praised Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau for imposing the War Measures Act in 1970. Also the former Marxist couldn't deal with the new groups athat emerged in the wake of the 1960's and 1970"s political upheavals.
     "Layton just hates feminists," a man from Montreal told this blogger. "He just can't deal with strong feminist women."
    Layton kept writing poetry but his poems lacked the edge and the passion of his earlier work. By the 1970's Layton was famous across Canada and in many parts of the world. He saw himself as a genius . Others disagreed. He got into a tremendous squabble with one of his biographers, namely Elsbeth Cameron.  Layton had become a celebrity which some observer defined as "Someone known for being known." He knew people like Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Adrienne Clarkson and other famous and elite Canadians.
     In conclusion. Layton wrote some fine poetry at times, and turned  many people onto the joy of poetry. He passed away in 2006. With his death a unique slice of Canada's cultural life, ended too.