Poetry
A Red Carpet for the Sun
Irving Layton · 1959
Synopsis
A large volume of two hundred and ten pages that brings together a selection of poems written from 1942 to 1958, taken from a dozen earlier collections, including many of the author's best known. The satire targets bourgeois values and everything that thwarts spontaneity; the book opens with a combative foreword in which the author roughs up the other poets. Among them are The Birth of Tragedy, The Cold Green Element and Berry Picking.
Context
It is this book that made its author's national reputation, his first great success. After fifteen years of collections issued by small presses, one of which he had co-founded, a major Toronto house took him on in 1959, the start of a long loyalty; an American edition appeared from Jonathan Williams. The same year, a Canada Council grant allowed him to travel and write abroad; other grants would take him in the sixties to Greece, Israel and India.
Who it is for
A large collection of more than two hundred pages, in a direct language, its tone often elevated and polemical.
Prizes and reception
Governor General's Award for poetry for 1959, the only one its author received; the book marks the beginning of his audience across the country.
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