Layton Collection

: Commonplace book; Contents include: p1 Notes of expenses in Paris; p2-5 In praise of benefactors drafts with changing title & diary entries of Paris visit; p6 Blank; p7-78 The day Aviva came to Paris various drafts, incl. 2 blank pages; p79-81 Blank. p82-85 Women of Rome various drafts; Remainder blank. Cover dated October 29, 1958.

: Corresondence RE: Limited Edition Love Poems; Includes corresondence, copies of poems, financial summaries for a special edition of Love Poems (copy of book available at the University of Saskatchewan's Layton Collection). Includes some original plates for the printing and hand corrected notes on various drafts of the contents of /Love Poems/.

: Correspondence; Correspondence, mostly with William Carlos Williams concerning Layton's work.

: Dislocation; Short story published in shortened reviews form with title Osmeck in Canadian Forum February, 1961 and in his The Swinging Flesh, 1961. Manuscript draft of 28 pages, typescript draft of 23 pages.

: Drafts of Poems; Hand and Typewritten poems sometimes including several drafts of "Brandy and Miel," "The Dysphasiac," "Sunflight," "Mell," "The Fuck-Up," "Tropical Flowers," "Nature's na," "The Mocking Bird," "Sand Crab," "Return to Eden," "The Journey," "Eden," "Voodoo," "The Hex," "St. Lucia Malut," "Harrietia," "Yeats in St Lucia," "Carib King," "Sun King."

: Drafts of Poems and Foreward; Several drafts of poems, often showing evolution of the creation with several copies and reworkings of individual poems. Also includes a "foreward." Many early poems start hand-written and then become typescripts and any use both sizes of the paper.

: Drafts of poems; 2 folders including drafts of the following poems: “The Massacre (for Pierre Elliott Trudeau), “Opiums”, “Princess Anna” and “A Shout in the Storm”; Also included: The Drunken Boat, Rimbaud, 1952. (End papers contain draft of Layton poem); The Poet’s Way of Knowledge, Lewis, C. Day, Cambridge University Press, 1957 (End papers contain draft of poem and essay by Irving Layton); Person, Place and Thing, Karl Shapiro, Reynal & Hitchcock, 1942. (Signed, “Irving Layton” End papers contain two drafts of poem about Petawawa. Also, on p.5, draft of ‘Epitaph for a Poet’ dated Jan. 25, 1943; Draft of Chapter 7 of Layton autobiography Waiting for Messiah; Articles about Irving Layton; Telegram from Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, September 4, 1957, inviting Irving Layton to participate in “Fighting Words” TV program.

: Layton Poetry Tape 1; Poetry reading at the David B. Steinman Festival. St. Lawrence University.

: Layton Poetry Tape 2; Poetry reading at the David B. Steinman Festival. St. Lawrence University.

: Montreal Hebrew Academy Grad Exercises; Graduation pamphlets from the Montreal Hebrew Academy. One partially in Hebrew. Lists board of trustees etc. for the UTTM and there are several comments to Layton signed in pencil.

: Music on a Kazoo; Draft of book Music on a Kazoo with many handwritten corrections.

: Nazi Airman; University of Saskatchewan, Special Collections, Designed, illustrated and printed by Jim Rimmer of Pie Tree Press & Type Foundry, New Westminster, B.C. The types are Goudy Italian Oldstyle with Deepdene Italic. The paper was made by Sea Pen Press and PaperPublished by Colophon Books, this edition is limited to 50 numbered and 25 lettered copies, all signed by the poet. This is copy 31. IS3N 0919223-5. With their leaden silenceeven the brightest starseach night mock the red-eyed crone.There’s no illumination anywhere.Mornings,she leaks her migraines into the naked sea promising much bigger ones to come.“That’ll give it something to growl about,” she says and calls the empty noise cosmic drivel.A leaf flutters down to my shoe.“God is shedding His dead skin,” I remark, to entertain myself and the old woman.will she catch the ontological driftof my speach? See Omnipotence in waves’ boom,Majesty in the fall of a leaf?Once, not long ago, I saw Godin full regalia of flaming mortarsand thunderbolts; howitzers roared out His anger.That dayHe looked at me through the crazed eyesof a Nazi airmanbabbling to his bleeding stumps.—IRVING LAYTON March 31, 1990, Broadside original poem by Layton written near the end of his life. Edition limited to 50 numbered and 25 lettered copies, all signed by the poet.Library has no. 31.

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