Fornalutx: Selected Poems, 1928-1990

William Blackburn is a professor of English at the University of
Calgary.

That Irving Layton has twice been nominated for a Nobel Prize is a
source of pride to some of us, and a source of embarrassment to others.
(Embarrassment, as we all know, is one of the principal Canadian art
forms.) This collection of 150 poems, spanning 60 years of Layton’s
output (and with an excellent introduction by Brian Trehearne) should
more than suffice to bury once and for all the pallid disdain of the
Academy.

Fornalutx presents a judicious selection of Layton’s poems,
emphasizing the duality at the heart of his poetic vision. Certainly,
one finds there his carefully studied vulgarity; one would not wish to
disappoint his critics (whom he denounces as “runts,” “scribbling
whores,” “quaint schoolmen [who] dribble on,” and in other
epithets yet more savory). But what comes through most strongly—and
most appropriately—in this collection is Layton’s passionate cry for
justice—both on the individual and the collective level—in a world
in which justice is forever impossible. The man is no tepid reformer
(“I do not write to improve your soul”), nor one of our
oh-so-exquisite literati (he has no patience with “the fraternity of
lying poets” who “tell you, sensitively, / what it feels like to be
a potato”). As this selection shows so well, ambiguity is central to
Layton’s worldview. He knows all too well that the soul is “a
troubling joy,” that “evil and creativity are twinned / are one,”
and that the poet’s world is “made from charred bones / the smiles
of fair-haired / humans / looking at them.” He also knows that the
world cannot be other than it is. And yet, despite this potentially
crippling knowledge, he is always ready to shout “Hurrah for life’s
defiance!” and to insist that “Evil is in the woof of reality / yet
the whole is good, is good!” Layton has, above all, a joyous courage,
and an unflinching clarity of vision. Fornalutx is a collection that
reminds us how very lucky we are to have him.