Analysis
Mina Loy's poetry collection, titled "Songs to Joannes", is a series of 36 poems ("Loy Chronology") . This series of poems is focused on sexuality and feminism. Along with sexuality, the poems talk about love, but the physical aspects, and the mental aspects. The poems are also feminist, giving women power. In the second poem in the series, Loy speaks of a baby being formed within the womb of a women. This poem hits both topics of the collection.
The line, "All the completions of my infructuous impulses" ("The Mina Loy Mysteries"), tells that the baby was created on an impulse, which hits on the physical aspect of love.
The line, "Something the shape of a man" ("The Mina Loy Mysteries"), makes is more than clear that she is speaking of a child. The fact that she states that the child is the shape of a man is the feminism part of this poem. Women did not have the rights men did, and could not do the things that men could. Women were seen as inferior. But this line alone shows something that women can do that men can not do. Men cannot create life within them. Women create life, and then they raise the child and care for it. Men cannot do this. This line could even suggest the instead of women being inferior, men are inferior do to the fact that only women can create life. Without women there is no life being created.
The fifth poem in the collection hits a lot on the feminist aspect of her writings. The poem at first can be taken into the aspect of good and evil, but upon looking further into it you can see the feminism clearly.
The lines, "To the left a boy" and "To the right a halœd ascetic" ("Songs to Joannes"), suggests that she is surrounded by men. The "halœd ascetic" is something like a pope or a monk, a man of God. So this line suggests being surrounded by men. The last line in the poem is where the feminist aspect shows.
"Since you got home to yourself—first" ("Songs to Joannes")
This shows, that even though she is surrounded by men, she returned home to herself. This shows that she stands as her own person and she lives her own life, not controlled or influenced by that of a man.
Though, another way to see this poem is to show the good an evil in the two men.
The line that show this are as following;
"To the left a boy
—One wing has been washed in the rain
The other will never be clean any more—
Pulling door-bells to remind
Those that are snug
To the right a halœd ascetic" ("Songs to Joannes")
Wings are on each side of something, the boy is one wing, and the halœd ascetic is the other wing. As stated earlier, the halœd ascetic is a Man of God, so he would be the wing that was washed in rain and is clean and pure, representing innocence and goodness. This leaves the boy to be the wing that cannot be cleaned. This wing would represent evil. Now because in the last line she says that she returns home to herself, you can find feminism in this way of seeing the poem as well. This could state that she does not affiliate with the evil or good in the world, stating that she does not see herself as evil, but she is not claiming to be innocent and pure either, again saying that she stands as her own person, representing her own morals and beliefs, and that she lives her life not being affected by the good of the world or the evil of the world.
These poems both give women power. It states that without women there can be no life, and that women do not need men, they stand alone and are independent, and Loy is a prime example of this. Her independence it clear. She is a reflection of her poetry in ways, and these poems are also examples of this.
Mina Loy writes in a very interesting way, these two poems, the second and fifth one in the collection, both show this. Loy write in unpunctuated free verse, and she writes with metaphors that take thought to analyze. Upon first glance, her poems are complex and confusing, but once someone really gets into the analysis, the poems make sense and you can clearly see the feminism ("Bayum, Nina, ed The Norton Anthology of American Literature") and on occasion the sexuality. Her poems are very unique as well, the things the writes were ahead of her time.