A new format reprint of one hundred poems. potency and tenderness The gratifying thing about reading his work now is that it grows with you. The older I get the more the poems reveal. I'm knocked out by the richness, the resonance, the generosity, the hard intelligence, the clarity, the passion, and above all else, the great, great aching tenderness, which remains very much a part of who he is and he means to me. Leonard Cohen a poetic mind of genuine dignity and power an unobstrusive mastery of technique. Northrop Frye When I first clapped my eyes on the poems of Irving Layton I let out a yell of joy With his vigour and abilities, who shall not say that Canada will not have produced one of the West's most famous poets? William Carlos Williams

"With The Covenant Irving Layton takes up once more the controversial theme of his previous volume, For My Brother Jesus. Returning to the fray, he lays waste to his critics with the kind of impassioned eloquence and well-honed reason that have kept succeeding generations of readers in awe if his prodigious mind and craft. The Covenant extends Layton's earlier argument about the relationship between the Holocaust and Christianity; it is an attempt to humanize and to de-mystify Jesus Christ, and to show the difference between his true disciples and those whom Layton calls "Xians", the ones who have perverted the teachings of Christ. With prophetic fire, Layton roars forth his testimony in stanzas that ring with honesty, conviction, and truth. His genius flashes with similar intensity but contrasting mood in the many beautiful love lyrics and meditative poems that are interspersed throughout. The Covenant is a worthy successor to the long list of books that mark the progress and popularity of this major poet." -- From back cover.

`Don't let the title fool you; this is not a book of romanticDance with Desire chosen from across the span of his long career, Layton styles himself as a 20th-century Catullus, loving and hating with equal glee, given to passionate excesses and epigrammatic precision, utterly unconcerned with sweet nothings or political correctness. Layton is often charged with being too verbose, with having published far too many substandard poems, and having let his verse grow slack as he grew older. These are all valid criticisms, but they don't really apply to Dance with Desire since its very existence depends upon the excesses, embarrassments, and foolishness of the unstifled love that Layton celebrates.'