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The Lost Lunar Baedeker: Poems of Mina Loy (1996)

by Mina Loy

Other authors: Roger L. Conover (Editor)

Other authors: See the other authors section.

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342274,971 (4.15)5
Mina Loy's technique and subjects - prostitution, menstruation, destitution, and suicide - shock even some modernists and she vanished from the poetry scene as dramatically as she had appeared on it. Roger Conover has resuced the key texts from the pages of forgotten publications, and has included all of the futurist and feminist satires, poems from Loy's Paris and New York periods, and the complete cycle of "Love Songs," as well as previously unknown texts and detailed notes.… (more)
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4.5/5

[…]

The smell of small cooking
From luckier houses
Is cruel to the maimed cat
Hiding
Among the carpenter’s shavings
From three boys
—One holding a bar—
Who nevertheless
Born of human parents
Cry when locked in the dark

[…]

-Italian Pictures: The Costa San Giorgio


I want someone with the tendency to obsess over Modernism and Futuruism and other Patriarchal Eurocentric Difficult Things (I know you're out there) to pore over this with a fine-tooth comb. I know I missed the most of it, what with not being fluent in French/German/Italian/smattering of Spanish and all the requisite references, but what I did manage to get is simply extraordinary. There's also the Latin business, but let's work our way up, shall we?

[…]

Defiance of old idolatries
inspires new schools

[…]

-Lions’ Jaws


Most of what I got went along the lines of sex and censor and the matter of thought not fitting into body into box. History talks about First Wave Feminism and its complacency with legality, a nice and neatness that would work if Loy hadn't been rocking around Second Wave (right to fuck) and Third Wave (right to not be white/rich/straight/cis) with her poems on childbirth and

[…]

And I who am called heretic,
and the only follower in Christ’s foot-steps
among this crowd adoring a wax doll
—for I alone am worshipping the poor
sore baby-the child of sex igno-
rance and poverty.

[…]

-The Prototype


and likely the only reason she and they survived is due to her not making a ruckus in the society spreadsheet of the time and drawing as much attention as the rest, aka

“One wonders what the devil anyone will make of this sort of thing who hasn’t all the clues….I am aware that the poems before me would drive numerous not wholly unintelligent readers into a fury of rage-out-of-puzzlement.”

-Ezra Pound, The Little Review 4:11 (March 1918, pp. 56-58)


but of course must one keep in mind that she spent a good portion of that talked-about time unmarried and taking care of her child. Which meant money, which meant reputation, which meant her not only seeing everything in terms of sex but writing about it in as esoterically linguistic a manner as possible just wouldn't do while she was a woman if she wanted to eat.

[…]

Is it true
That I have set you apart
Inviolate in an utter crystallization
Of all the jolting of the crowd
Taught me willingly to live to share

Or are you
Only the other half
Of an ego’s necessity
Scourging pride with compassion
To the shallow sound of dissonance
And boom of escaping breath

[…]

-Songs to Joannes


As you can see, it didn't stop her from publishing every so often, drawing enough attention and the rare combo of literary editor and rabid fan to bring her work into the new millenium. I question the "new", really, for her life will still attract the "whore" and "slut" and every other word the gynephobic use when especially afraid of women embracing their sex drive. You are not free to malign such a phenomenal spirit in such a way, but if you wish to say as such while fucking a pinecone, be my guest.

[…]

You may give birth to us
or marry us
the chances of your flesh
are not our destiny—
The cuirass of the soul
still chines—
And we are unaware
if you confuse
such brief
corrosion with possession

[…]

-Apology of Genius


She hung out with Stein and Barnes and this Nancy Cunard person whom I'd kick myself for not hearing about sooner except for, well, she's exactly the type to be buried in the chronicles posthaste.

[…]

The impartiality of the absolute
Routes the polemic
Or which of us
Would not
Receiving the holy-ghost
Catch it and caging
Lose it
Or in the problematic
Destroy the Universe
With a solution.

-Human Cylinders


Seriously, Modernist Extraordinare. She wrote a poem about [Ulysses]. Go forth. ( )
  Korrick | Oct 23, 2014 |
Mentioned in The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women by Harriet Rubin.
  velvetink | Mar 31, 2013 |
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» Add other authors (1 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Mina Loyprimary authorall editionscalculated
Conover, Roger L.Editorsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Ray, ManCover photographsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Mina Loy's technique and subjects - prostitution, menstruation, destitution, and suicide - shock even some modernists and she vanished from the poetry scene as dramatically as she had appeared on it. Roger Conover has resuced the key texts from the pages of forgotten publications, and has included all of the futurist and feminist satires, poems from Loy's Paris and New York periods, and the complete cycle of "Love Songs," as well as previously unknown texts and detailed notes.

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