Irving Layton
| Irving Layton | |
|---|---|
| Born | Israel Pincu Lazarovitch March 12, 1912 Târgu Neamţ, Romania |
| Died | January 4, 2006 (aged 93) Montreal, Quebec |
| Occupation | poet |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Ethnicity | Jewish |
| Notable awards | Governor General's Award, Order of Canada |
Irving Peter Layton, OC (March 12, 1912 – January 4, 2006) was a Romanian-born Canadian poet. He was known for his "tell it like it is" style which won him a wide following, but also made him enemies. As T. Jacobs notes in his biography (2001), Layton fought Puritanism throughout his life:
Layton's work had provided the bolt of lightning 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.
Irving Layton was born on March 12, 1912, as Israel Pincu Lazarovitch in Târgu Neamţ, a small town in Romania, to Jewish parents, Moses and Klara Lazarovitch. He migrated with his family to Montreal, Quebec in 1913, where they lived in the impoverished St. Urbain Street neighbourhood, later made famous by the novels of Mordecai Richler. 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. Layton, however, identified himself not as an observant Jew but rather as a freethinker.
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 Tennyson, Walter Scott, Wordsworth, Byron, and Shelley; the novelists Jane Austen and George Eliot; the essayists Francis Bacon, Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Johnson, and Jonathan Swift; and also Shakespeare and Darwin. He was befriended by David Lewis and became very interested in politics and social theory. He joined the Young People's Socialist League or YPSL (commonly pronounced "Yipsel"), which Lewis led. He began reading Karl Marx and Nietzsche. His activities in YPSL were deemed a threat to the high school administration, and he was asked to leave before graduating in 1930. It was Lewis who introduced Layton to A. M. Klein. Lewis asked Klein to be Layton's Latin tutor so he could pass the junior matriculation exams. Lewis gave him $10 to pay the fee for the exam and he passed. It was also during his time with Klein that he became interested in the sound of poetry.
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