emmishnation's review against another edition
4.0
Creates a space for art for females about the female experience, including abortion, childbirth, prostitution, relationships, living under the pressure to conform to the madonna-whore paradigm. Futurist, Feminist, and Modernist manifestos.
harleyburch's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Once discovered, if her poems do not immediately repel, they possess. Her work is far more likely to be a toxic or a tonic - quickly sworn off or gradually acquired as a lifelong habit - than a passing interest.
chervbim's review against another edition
4.0
I'd been wanting to read this for over a year and couldn't find it anywhere! Finally it turned up at my favorite used bookstore, and I am so glad it did. This was such a great read, a really solid collection and very ahead of its time. Great example of a female modernist and early openly feminist voice in literature. Loved it.
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
4.0
Mina Loy is so underrated. Two other poems of hers I love are "Religious Instruction" and "Human Cylinders."from LUNAR BAEDEKERA silver Lucifer
serves
cocaine in cornucopia
To some somnambulists
of adolescent thighs
draped
in satirical draperies
Peris in livery
prepare
Lethe
for posthumous parvenues
Delirious Avenues
lit
with the chandelier souls
of infusoria
from Pharoah’s tombstones
lead
to mercurial doomsdays
Odious oasis
in furrowed phosphorous
the eye-white sky-light
white-light district
of lunar lusts
Stellectric signs
“Wing shows on Starway”
“Zodiac carrousel”
Cyclones
of ecstatic dust
and ashes whirl
crusaders
from hallucinatory citadels
of shattered glass
into evacuate craters
A flock of dreams
browse on Necropolis
From the shores
of oval oceans
in the oxidized Orient
Onyx-eyed Odalisques
and ornithologists
observe
the flight
of Eros obsolete
And “Immortality”
mildews...
in the museums of the moon
“Nocturnal cyclops”
“Crystal concubine”
Pocked with personification
the fossil virgin of the skies
waxes and wanes
erinmae555's review against another edition
3.0
Loy’s choice of word is very specific and every word matters in the poem...but I feel like the obscure words complicated the meaning of a lot of the poems, which I would have to think what each word meant separately and then together. I prefer shorter poems too, so a lot of them I forgot what the first page was about by the time I got to the second. The poems “Feminist Manifesto” and “Aphorisms on Futurism” I need to think about, it might have gone over my head as to what was the speaker’s point.
Some notable poems:
Three Moments in Paris
The Effectual Marriage
O Hell
Poe
Joyce’s Ulysses
Gertrude Stein
The Widow’s Jazz
Mass Production on 14th Street
Aid of the Madonna
Omen of Victory
Some notable poems:
Three Moments in Paris
The Effectual Marriage
O Hell
Poe
Joyce’s Ulysses
Gertrude Stein
The Widow’s Jazz
Mass Production on 14th Street
Aid of the Madonna
Omen of Victory
sarahreadsaverylot's review against another edition
4.0
An inspired and inspiring collection. The appendices are thorough, accessible, and invaluable, though the introduction carries an apologetic tone that I can't see sitting well with Ms. Loy. Nonetheless, this volume is a bookshelf treasure trove, filled with such gems as,
"There is no Life or Death,
Only activity
And in the absolute
Is no declivity.
There is no Love or Lust
Only propensity
Who would possess
Is a nonentity.
There is no First or Last
Only equality
And who would rule
Joins the majority.
There is no Space or Time
Only intensity,
And tame things
Have no immensity."
and
"We might have coupled
In the bed-ridden monopoly of a moment
Or broken flesh with one another
At the profane communion table
Where wine is spill'd on promiscuous lips
We might have given birth to a butterfly
With the daily news
Printed in blood on its wings"
and
"We are the sacerdotal clowns
who feed upon the wind and stars
and pulverous pastures of poverty
Our wills are formed
by curious disciplines
beyond your laws
You may give birth to us
or marry us
the chances of your flesh
are not our destiny--"
"There is no Life or Death,
Only activity
And in the absolute
Is no declivity.
There is no Love or Lust
Only propensity
Who would possess
Is a nonentity.
There is no First or Last
Only equality
And who would rule
Joins the majority.
There is no Space or Time
Only intensity,
And tame things
Have no immensity."
and
"We might have coupled
In the bed-ridden monopoly of a moment
Or broken flesh with one another
At the profane communion table
Where wine is spill'd on promiscuous lips
We might have given birth to a butterfly
With the daily news
Printed in blood on its wings"
and
"We are the sacerdotal clowns
who feed upon the wind and stars
and pulverous pastures of poverty
Our wills are formed
by curious disciplines
beyond your laws
You may give birth to us
or marry us
the chances of your flesh
are not our destiny--"
sjshepperd's review against another edition
4.0
Read selections of this for class, love Loy's spunky and unapologetic poems
lgould24's review against another edition
3.0
Powerful modernist commentaries on sex, gender, and power, but like nearly all other modernist poets, I found it impossible to separate her discussions of race, class, and the tactical weaponization of sex from the fascist ideologies taking hold at the time.