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Women of the Avant-Garde: Mina Loy
Mina Loy was a kick ass modern writer/thinker whose historical significance has unfortunately been overshadowed by her male contemporaries — as is the case for many important women avant-garde writers. We hear about Andre Breton and Filippo Marinetti, but rarely do we hear about Beatrice Wood, Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, or Mina Loy.
Anyway, the other day I came across this thoughtful examination of one of Loy’s poems (“Mina Loy: “Lunar Baedeker”: The poet navigates the unknown world” by Jessica Burstein) so I thought I’d share that with you and use the opportunity to boost Loy’s name back into the cultural consciousness.
Here’s the opening of the poem Burstein discusses in her essay:
A silver Lucifer
serves
cocaine in cornucopiaTo some somnambulists
of adolescent thighs
draped
in satirical draperies–from the opening of “Lunar Baedeker“
And here is a quote from Loy’s book called The Lost Lunar Baedeker:
Imagine a tennis champion who became inspired to write poetry, would not his verse be likely to embody the rhythmic transit of skimming balls? Would not his meter depend on his way of life, would it not form itself, without having recourse to traditional, remembered, or excepted forms? This, then, is the secret of the new poetry. It is the direct response of the poet’s mind to the modern world of varieties in which he finds himself. In each one we can discover his particular inheritance of that world’s beauty.
If you’re interested to learn more about her, you can begin here, here, and here.
mina loy, much like frederic fucking chopin, is the shit.
mina loy, much like frederic fucking chopin, is the shit.
Cocaine in cornucopia. I’m sold.
Cocaine in cornucopia. I’m sold.
i have a giant crush on mina loy
i have a giant crush on mina loy
Hmm…not sure the pushed aside narrative still holds in this case…Mina Loy is plenty famous…if you lived (reading) through the 90s you’re more likely to know her work than, well, certainly than Marinetti.
Hmm…not sure the pushed aside narrative still holds in this case…Mina Loy is plenty famous…if you lived (reading) through the 90s you’re more likely to know her work than, well, certainly than Marinetti.
Agreed.
Agreed.
That’s understandable.
That’s understandable.
Agreed.
That’s understandable.
Hi Drew,
Not sure where you’re writing from, but here in the US that’s most certainly not the case. To prove it, I just went and did a quick search of JSTOR (one of the standard scholarly research archives) and came back with 2376 matches for Marinetti compared to 573 for Mina Loy. A quick glance at Amazon will yield a similarly disproportionate number of books on or about Marinetti compared to Mina Loy. If anyone is interested, they could do a WorldCat search to find the exact number of books, but I think Amazon should suffice.
Of course you could claim that just because books and articles haven’t been written about her work doesn’t mean she isn’t “plenty famous,” but I guess I would wonder what you mean by “plenty famous.”
Perhaps you are lucky enough to have a peer group with a strong familiarity with Mina Loy’s work. If that’s the case, that’s awesome! But for “most people,” including many of us who lived through the 90s, I get the sense that Loy’s work is much less familiar than Marinetti’s not only because quantitatively less has been written about her, but also because I have not encountered many people who are familiar enough with her work to discuss it when I bring it up.
Obviously your experience has been different. I’d be interested to hear about it.
Chris
Hi Drew,
Not sure where you’re writing from, but here in the US that’s most certainly not the case. To prove it, I just went and did a quick search of JSTOR (one of the standard scholarly research archives) and came back with 2376 matches for Marinetti compared to 573 for Mina Loy. A quick glance at Amazon will yield a similarly disproportionate number of books on or about Marinetti compared to Mina Loy. If anyone is interested, they could do a WorldCat search to find the exact number of books, but I think Amazon should suffice.
Of course you could claim that just because books and articles haven’t been written about her work doesn’t mean she isn’t “plenty famous,” but I guess I would wonder what you mean by “plenty famous.”
Perhaps you are lucky enough to have a peer group with a strong familiarity with Mina Loy’s work. If that’s the case, that’s awesome! But for “most people,” including many of us who lived through the 90s, I get the sense that Loy’s work is much less familiar than Marinetti’s not only because quantitatively less has been written about her, but also because I have not encountered many people who are familiar enough with her work to discuss it when I bring it up.
Obviously your experience has been different. I’d be interested to hear about it.
Chris
Hi Drew,
Not sure where you’re writing from, but here in the US that’s most certainly not the case. To prove it, I just went and did a quick search of JSTOR (one of the standard scholarly research archives) and came back with 2376 matches for Marinetti compared to 573 for Mina Loy. A quick glance at Amazon will yield a similarly disproportionate number of books on or about Marinetti compared to Mina Loy. If anyone is interested, they could do a WorldCat search to find the exact number of books, but I think Amazon should suffice.
Of course you could claim that just because books and articles haven’t been written about her work doesn’t mean she isn’t “plenty famous,” but I guess I would wonder what you mean by “plenty famous.”
Perhaps you are lucky enough to have a peer group with a strong familiarity with Mina Loy’s work. If that’s the case, that’s awesome! But for “most people,” including many of us who lived through the 90s, I get the sense that Loy’s work is much less familiar than Marinetti’s not only because quantitatively less has been written about her, but also because I have not encountered many people who are familiar enough with her work to discuss it when I bring it up.
Obviously your experience has been different. I’d be interested to hear about it.
Chris
Try two AbeBooks advanced searches instead. Limit the fields in the following manner. For both searches, enter “1997” as the minimum year. In the keyword field enter “F T Marinetti” and then for the second search “Mina Loy”…
I think you’ll find that the monotony of the Marinetti results contrasts with the interesting and varied results produced by Mina Loy’s name.
JSTOR is a record of work that no one has ever or will ever read.
“You couldn’t fit all the literary criticism ever written aboard the Titanic, but you could fit all the criticism worth saving into a single lifeboat.”
I grant you that I may be wrong about this one…I’ll poll the poets and report back.
Try two AbeBooks advanced searches instead. Limit the fields in the following manner. For both searches, enter “1997” as the minimum year. In the keyword field enter “F T Marinetti” and then for the second search “Mina Loy”…
I think you’ll find that the monotony of the Marinetti results contrasts with the interesting and varied results produced by Mina Loy’s name.
JSTOR is a record of work that no one has ever or will ever read.
“You couldn’t fit all the literary criticism ever written aboard the Titanic, but you could fit all the criticism worth saving into a single lifeboat.”
I grant you that I may be wrong about this one…I’ll poll the poets and report back.
Try two AbeBooks advanced searches instead. Limit the fields in the following manner. For both searches, enter “1997” as the minimum year. In the keyword field enter “F T Marinetti” and then for the second search “Mina Loy”…
I think you’ll find that the monotony of the Marinetti results contrasts with the interesting and varied results produced by Mina Loy’s name.
JSTOR is a record of work that no one has ever or will ever read.
“You couldn’t fit all the literary criticism ever written aboard the Titanic, but you could fit all the criticism worth saving into a single lifeboat.”
I grant you that I may be wrong about this one…I’ll poll the poets and report back.
thanks for this! i think when baroness von elsa & mina loy are remembered its mostly in terms of the visual arts…she actually had a lampshade business in Paris…and her artwork was really cool as well.
thanks for this! i think when baroness von elsa & mina loy are remembered its mostly in terms of the visual arts…she actually had a lampshade business in Paris…and her artwork was really cool as well.
thanks for this! i think when baroness von elsa & mina loy are remembered its mostly in terms of the visual arts…she actually had a lampshade business in Paris…and her artwork was really cool as well.
I love historic Avant-Garde (in meaning of Peter Bürger). But I have to confess, the men of Avant-Garde weren’t cool enough in relation to female Avantgardists. For example, Hannah Höch – great dada-woman, but always in the shadow of the dada-men. Raoul Hausman did titanic job trying to get her dada-work to the First International Dadaist Exhibition. Because George Grosz and John Hearthfield were not really happy with a woman in their bivouac.
So even the brave avant-garde wasn’t brave enought, not openminded enough… There is always room for improvement.
I love historic Avant-Garde (in meaning of Peter Bürger). But I have to confess, the men of Avant-Garde weren’t cool enough in relation to female Avantgardists. For example, Hannah Höch – great dada-woman, but always in the shadow of the dada-men. Raoul Hausman did titanic job trying to get her dada-work to the First International Dadaist Exhibition. Because George Grosz and John Hearthfield were not really happy with a woman in their bivouac.
So even the brave avant-garde wasn’t brave enought, not openminded enough… There is always room for improvement.
I love historic Avant-Garde (in meaning of Peter Bürger). But I have to confess, the men of Avant-Garde weren’t cool enough in relation to female Avantgardists. For example, Hannah Höch – great dada-woman, but always in the shadow of the dada-men. Raoul Hausman did titanic job trying to get her dada-work to the First International Dadaist Exhibition. Because George Grosz and John Hearthfield were not really happy with a woman in their bivouac.
So even the brave avant-garde wasn’t brave enought, not openminded enough… There is always room for improvement.
Henri Chopin
Henri Chopin
Henri Chopin
Great to see a post about a literary women without the vagina-bashing……..
;)
Great to see a post about a literary women without the vagina-bashing……..
;)
oh, and i (heart) Loy!
oh, and i (heart) Loy!
Great to see a post about a literary women without the vagina-bashing……..
;)
oh, and i (heart) Loy!
Her writing looks amazing. Thanks for sharing this.
Her writing looks amazing. Thanks for sharing this.
Her writing looks amazing. Thanks for sharing this.
Don’t forget Maud Gonne.
Don’t forget Maud Gonne.
Don’t forget Maud Gonne.
long live Avant gArde!
long live Avant gArde!
long live Avant gArde!
I am so in love with this post so much I can’t see straight. Thank you.
I am so in love with this post so much I can’t see straight. Thank you.
I am so in love with this post so much I can’t see straight. Thank you.
Check out this YouTube video of Charles Bernstein reading Mina Loy’s Aphorisms on Futurism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlcElSFTDNs/
Check out this YouTube video of Charles Bernstein reading Mina Loy’s Aphorisms on Futurism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlcElSFTDNs/
Check out this YouTube video of Charles Bernstein reading Mina Loy’s Aphorisms on Futurism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlcElSFTDNs/