Poet Irving Layton Dies in Montreal at Age 93

(1912-2006)

“When I first clapped eyes on the poems of Irving Layton I let out a yell of joy… for the way he greeted the world he was celebrating, head up, eyes propped wide.… He inhabits the medium [of poetry] and is at home in it, passionately.… With his vigor and abilities, who shall not say that Canada will not have produced one of the west’s most famous poets?”–

William Carlos Williams

“...And, at last, both famous and good

I'm a Doge, a dog

At the end of a terrace

Where poems like angels like flakes of powder

Quaver above my prickling skin."

Composition in Late Spring, Selected Poems 1945-89 A Wild Peculiar Joy, M&S: 1989