Poetic Salvage : Reading Mina Loy

This book provides new explications of Loy’s most redolent poems from The Lost Lunar Baedeker. It offers a short biography, an explanation of Loy’s composition process, and compelling close readings that uncover the source materials that inspired her poetry, including modern artwork, Baedeker travel guides, and long-forgotten cultural venues.

Mina Loy—poet, artist, exile, and luminary—was a prominent and admired figure in the art and literary circles of Paris, Florence, and New York in the early years of the twentieth century. But over time, she gradually receded from public consciousness and her poetry went out of print. As part of the movement to introduce the work of this cryptic poet to modern audiences, Poetic Salvage: Reading Mina Loy provides new and detailed explications of Loy’s most redolent poems. This book helps readers gain a better understanding of the body of Loy’s work as a whole by offering compelling close readings that uncover the source materials that inspired Loy’s poetry, including modern artwork, Baedeker travel guides, and even long-forgotten cultural venues. Helpfully keyed to the contents of Loy’s Lost Lunar Baedeker, edited by Roger Conover, this book is an essential aid for new readers and scholars alike. Mina Loy forged a legacy worthy of serious consideration—through a practice best understood as salvage work, of reclaiming what has been so long obscured. Poetic Salvage: Reading Mina Loy dives deep to bring hidden treasures to the surface.