A Wild Peculiar Joy

“If you are wondering what happened to us all, you might consult the poems of Irving Layton.”
—Leonard Cohen

“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

“I applaud him for being a poet as close to genius as any alive.”
—Al Purdy

“Layton has never stopped demonstrating one important truth: poetry is power. . . . When he hits his stride, one gets the feeling of living a larger life, of breathing purer air and making strong, important gestures. . . . He is one of the few contemporary poets powerful enough to fuse commonplaces with grand stances and ideas, and make us believe the alchemy.”
—John Bemrose, Globe and Mail

“A poetic mind of genuine dignity and power.”
—Northrop Frye

“He rages like an old prophet, and like an old prophet he strikes fire out of rock and calls together in those sparks visions of past, present, and future that we may know ourselves anew, as if for the first time.”
—Eli Mandel