Chapter 26 - Finding “Only Words” Mysterious

Summary

This chapter considers the trajectory of Mina Loy's writing life from its beginnings in distinctly European avant-gardes through the influence of her early visits to the United States to a late poem titled America A Miracle. Loy's writing moves along a spectrum from reaction against futurist precepts in the language and style of European artistic movements to a late articulation of similar principles. Loy's early poetry is equally marked by her location among European avant-gardes. In New York, modernists were less interested in outraging cultural norms and less political in opposing specific cultural institutions than European avant-gardists. Loy's stylistic innovation in part imitates and in part extends Futurist aesthetics, just as she is both inspired by Futurist practices of art and energized to formulate her rejection of its ideas. Like Loy, Hilda Doolittle published under a name independent of the patronymics of her father and husbands.