Improved Binoculars

`The Improved Binoculars, a collection of poems from the first 10 years of Irving Layton's long career, is the work of a writer who can be confrontational, bawdy, crass, and even romantic. This poet sees fidelity to the truth as much more important than decorum or good taste. Layton leaps from mythology to scatology in his extravagant -- but often rigidly formal -- poems, apologizing to no one for his fury or his libido. At their best, these poems are richly joyous, even in their darkest moments. At times, Layton's poems do overshoot their mark with excessive or misdirected passion. But this is a necessary consequence of the poet's audacity; there were not many overreachers writing in Canada in the 1950s.

`The Improved Binoculars, published in 1956 by Jonathan Williams's Jargon Press, was the first of Layton's collections to be widely published in North America. Ryerson Press, the book's Canadian distributor, refused to distribute the book (or even release it to the author) because of its ``controversial'' content. It is telling that Layton, whom we now regard as the author of some of the finest poems in Canadian history, found a warmer reception at first in the United States than he did in his own country. Layton's early backers included Robert Creeley and William Carlos Williams, who provided a warm (but condescending -- he refers to Layton, a Montrealer, as a ``backwoodsman'') forward for The Improved Binoculars.'

`Layton has published at least seven volumes of ``Selected Poems'' over the years, but The Improved Binoculars is still one of the best introductions to his work. Readers new to Layton will appreciate this slender collection's size and be delighted with the scope and intensity of its contents.'