Fortunate Exile

Description

168 pages
ISBN 0-7710-4947-1
DDC C811'

Year

1987

Contributor

Reviewed by Don Precosky

Don Precosky teaches English at the College of New Caledonia and is the
co-editor of Four Realities: Poets of Northern B.C.

Review

Irving Layton has published more than one volume of “selected” and “collected” versions of his poems over the years. Although Fortunate Exile is not labeled as such, Layton, with the assistance of Russell Brown, has assembled what is probably the finest distillation of his voluminous output.

The collection spans Layton’s 40-year career and highlights one of his major themes: what it means to be a Jew in the twentieth century. I have always felt uncomfortable with some of Layton’s personae. Layton as lover, self-proclaimed great artist, and political controversialist have often struck me as mere rhetorical stances. But Layton’s assertion of his Jewish
identity is the genuine thing. The poems come straight from the soul. This is a moving, often anguished book. Layton’s anger and pain are like a fire that purges him of the egotism that marks too much of his poetry:

My murdered kin
let me be your parched and swollen tongue
uttering the maledictions
bullets and gas silenced on your lips

The humility of “let me” is genuine.

Fortunate Exile is an important book that can only enhance Irving Layton’s reputation.

Citation

Layton, Irving, “Fortunate Exile,” Canadian Book Review Annual Online, accessed February 15, 2025, https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/34627.