SOURCE: Lewis, Joanne. “Irving's Women: A Feminist Critique of the Love Poems of Irving Layton.” Studies in Canadian Literature 13, no. 2 (1988): 142-56.

In the following essay, Lewis examines the attitudes toward women in the themes, images, and literary strategies of Layton's love poetry, comparing the sexist, misogynistic, and anti-feminist qualities of his poems with similar opinions gleaned from his personal life.

Brief to Irving 

I open your latest book of eighty-two poems another blitzkreig and see you're taking up the cudgels against another wife: I wonder how she's taking it? I see. She's leaking headaches trembling in corners already and she's only had two years of you. The reason, perhaps, appears on page 75 you squirm over your neighbour's crotch … 

After twenty years I am still angry I will say it for us all Faye, Aviva, Harriet, myself: We're not, Irving, merely strumpets for your pleasure; we're almost numerous enough...