Droppings From Heaven

I read this slowly in between other books. This one was odd; Layton used a lot of political and historical references I barely understood. Cool title though.

This is quoted from a two-star review on Goodreads of the 1979 poetry collection Droppings From Heaven by Irving Layton.

I'll say one thing about this brief ‘review’. He's right about the title.

At least he's honest about the reasons for his cluelessness: an unfamiliarity with ‘political and historical references.’

I'm re-reading the book myself. It's true Layton does make a lot of political and historical references in his poems, some of them obscure, like Stalin, Mussolini and the German National Socialists. The book is, in part, a fiery indictment of man's inhumanity to man.

Layton takes on the admonishing voice of the biblical prophet Jeremiah. But he's not ranting about the downfall of Jerusalem. He's warning about the moral degradation that allowed the atrocities of the 20th century. And not even God is spared his outrage.

Cool title indeed.

Layton writes: “The battle for the free, independent individual, for his dignity and waywardness, against the hordes of robots and frightened massmen that a soulless technology is creating in ever-increasing numbers, has already been joined. The stakes are high: they have never been higher and the future of poetry rests on its outcome.”

When he says ‘the future of poetry’ he actually means humanity. They are one and the same to Layton. He knew nothing of social media influencers or AI agents. Much less a malignant narcissist like Donald trump or a diabolical megalomaniac like Elon Musk.

And what of these poetry-reading dullards and amnesiacs who have limited knowledge of politics and even less of history? Well, they are ripe for the picking. They are susceptible to believing in any absurd conspiracy theory, but will be especially enamoured by ones that finger the Jews for all their woes and have a special affinity for those that offer an apocalyptic ending.

As for the state of poetry, when it's actually read, Layton wrote: “Its old enemies are still with us—humbug, mediocrity, gentility. And, striding with ever-increasing confidence, a couple of newcomers—machine-tooled professionalism and a bloodless scholasticism lugging a supply of cosmetics to rouge it into the appearance of life.”

It's unsurprising that so little of the stuff gets read anymore.

Layton might have added to his list of newcomer ‘enemies’ the elevation of marginalized identities. The job of the arts since his death in 2006 (the year Facebook was launched)—particularly the kind on public life support like poetry publishing—is, too often, political. Look at the submission guidelines of most poetry publishers these days and you will find a line that says something like ‘BIPOC and LGBTQ+ authors are especially encouraged to submit.’

I first came across the acronym BIPOC about twenty years ago in a rejection letter from a publisher to whom I had submitted a novel manuscript. The editor wrote something along the lines of—don't take this personally, but we would have been more open to considering your novel if your protagonist had been a woman instead of a middle-aged man, or if you were BIPOC.

Personally, when I read a book—or meet a stranger face to face—I couldn't care less if the author is BIPOC or LGBTQ+. Nor do I care how they identify religiously, ethnically or politically, or what hockey team they root for.

All I care about is truth-telling and being moved by their humanity. And not your truth or my truth. THE truth. And yes, the truth really is still out there. 

Somewhere.