Mina Loy “Songs to Joannes”

I get the feeling that Loy is poet equivalent in nature to the impressionist painters of the beginning of the 20^th century. I feel that she uses more emotional words, adjectives and adverbs than there should be in relation to nouns and verbs making the whole poem a fragmented montage of expression rather than meaning. I frequently hear that art is a medium of self expression, and this piece illustrates that quite nicely. This poem has a narrator and is speaking to only one person. It is full of a mixture of innuendos and descriptive imagery. There seems to be an air of secrecy about the poem “…Something only for you / Something that I must not see” (part XIII, lines 9-10). I can’t put a finger on it exactly, but this poem also seems to be glorifying the darker themes associated with love.

Let us be very jealous

Very suspicious

Very Conservative

Very Cruel

                (lines 14-18)