The lost lunar Baedeker : poems of Mina Loy

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. Mina Loy has been perplexingly absent from British literary history. In America she has been posthumously launched as the electric-age Blake, she has been translated into French and Italian to great acclaim, and in the Times Literary Supplement Thom Gunn compared her to the great Augustan satirists. Her reclamation as an English poet is long overdue. Pound, Moore and Williams valued her work, while British critics openly scorned it. Not only were her futurist techniques unlike anything they had encountered before, but her subjects -- procreation, parturition, prostitution, suicide, addiction, retardation -- were considered shocking even by some modernists. She vanished from the literary scene just as dramatically as she had arrived on it, and for much of the century her bold experiments remained a well-kept secret. Carcanet first introduced her work to British readers in 1985 in Roger Conover's The Last Lunar Baedeker , a collected writings. This new edition updates our earlier volume and presents more reliable texts of the essential Loy poems. It includes more extensive notes and apparatus, and features a number of previously unknown works rescued from Dada archives and obscure avant-garde little magazines. All of Loy's canonical Futurist and feminist satires are included, as are the celebrated poems from her Paris and New York periods, the complete cycle of `Love Songs', and her famous portraits-in-verse which define the trajectory of her favoured company and geography -- from fellow modernists Joyce and Brancusi in Paris in the 1920s to fellow destitutes in New York's Lower East Side in the 1940s. "There was a time when it was common to couple Mina Loy's name with that of W.C. Williams or Marianne Moore: her advanced contemporaries considered her a literary and artistic genius - a descendant of Sappho by way of Emily Dickinson. But the public was scandalized by her work, and some critics openly scorned it. Not only were her Futurist-inspired techniques unlike anything most readers had encountered before, but her subjects - procreation, parturition, prostitution, suicide, addiction, retardation - were considered shocking even by some modernists." "Mina Loy vanished from the literary scene just as dramatically as she arrived on it, and for most of the century her bold experiments have remained a well-kept secret. But in recent years Loy's work has been discovered by a new generation of poets and critics, and has begun to surface in revisionist anthologies. What has been needed is a reliable text of the essential Loy poems." "To assemble The Lost Lunar Baedeker, Roger Conover has rescued Loy's poems and prose works from the Dada magazines and other ephemeral publications where they first appeared. All of Loy's notorious Futurist and feminist satires are included, as are many poems from her Paris and New York periods, the complete cycle of "Love Songs," and several previously unknown texts. Detailed notes accompany the text."--Jacket There was a time when it was common to couple Mina Loy's name with that of W. C. Williams or Marianne Moore: her advanced contemporaries considered her a literary and artistic genius - a descendant of Sappho by way of Emily Dickinson. But the public was scandalized by her work, and some critics openly scorned it. Not only were her Futurist-inspired techniques unlike anything most readers had encountered before, but her subjects - procreation, parturition, prostitution, suicide, addiction, retardation - were considered shocking even by some modernists. Mina Loy vanished from the literary scene just as dramatically as she arrived on it, and for most of the century her bold experiments have remained a well-kept secret. But in recent years Loy's work has been discovered by a new generation of poets and critics, and has begun to surface in revisionist anthologies. What has been needed is a reliable text of the essential Loy poems. To assemble The Lost Lunar Baedeker, Roger Conover has rescued Loy's poems and prose works from the Dada magazines and other ephemeral publications where they first appeared. All of Loy's notorious Futurist and feminist satires are included, as are many poems from her Paris and New York periods, the complete cycle of "Love Songs," and several previously unknown texts. Detailed notes accompany the text.