MOVIES - June 25, 1991

Director-Poets: Film directors have usurped the poet in “keeping score” for humankind, says Canadian poet Irving Layton, 79, one of nine poets honored at a weekend gathering of some of the world’s leading verse-makers in Capri, Italy. “The great poets of our age are moviemakers, like Ingmar Bergman, Luis Bunuel, Federico Fellini--because with cameras they can outdistance and outshine poets who have to use words,” Layton said. He argued passionately, though, for the poet’s mission. “Poetry,” he said, “is your passport out of the hell of consumerism.”