Dean J.Baker -
poems, prose poems, stories, music, literary figures, etc.
For My Dear Layton
"Dean is a combination of thought and torment that has made him write more than a baker's dozen of fine poems.. he might produce a collection that could astound us all." - Irving Layton, Toronto newspaper, sometime in the 1980’s
I think of you often, Irving
some Saturday mornings, like those
when you called offering help and cheer:
while your coffee grew cold over the welcome
Now, reflecting on another poem,
you stare out the bay window
of your former Toronto home: that became
haunted with the apparition of happiness
Mute, with prayerful song, evidence
of all we spoke and wrote those times;
letters, calls, newspaper articles shown:
your wild peculiar joy always and forever known
©Dean J.Baker
For a friend of mine who passed away a year ago; who’d call every week or twice a week at times even when we were meeting often; and whom called my mother, though they hadn’t met, when she was in the hospital to check on her
Also got along well with my father when we had tea at his house
A friend of and teacher to Leonard Cohen
Nominated for the Nobel Prize twice for his poetry
Irving and I were pals from about 1971 onward
you can see he offered up a quote about my work on my webpage, probably more around but I haven't found the time to unearth them(that one's from a newpaper interview)
We hung around, we phoned, we wrote letters, went to movies, had meals, he did readings, and after a long number of years I got him bookings at different times
Early on he had me help him teach/assist informally in his Honor's Graduate Class - we used to slip our poems in between the classics and see if anyone could guess.....never did
He was very happy with a letter I wrote to The Toronto Star calling him Canada's Shakespeare that achieved a full half page along with a photo of him - and Al Purdy phoned me to say a well done
Irving was admired far and wide by other writers, such as William Carlos Williams, Al Purdy, John Newlove, Allen Ginsberg, Leonard Cohen, etc
Some of his letters and mine are held for study by Honors' Graduate Students at Concordia University, Montreal
