Irving Layton

Immigrating to Montreal's Jewish immigrant quarter as a child, Layton studied at Macdonald College and McGill, teaching high school while publishing fiery poetry collections with Louis Dudek and Raymond Souster. In 1959, his landmark collection, A Red Carpet for the Sun, won the Governor General's Award.

Layton celebrated Dionysian joy, erotic vitality, and uninhibited self-expression, mentoring younger writers including Leonard Cohen, who described him as his primary master. Nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, he published over forty volumes of explosive verse.