# Mina Loy: self-indulgent masturbatory cunt of a "poet" **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 25, 2006, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585 "2006-01-25T19:00:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/21 "2006-01-25T20:19:33Z")
> [@Argent Towers](#): > > \I can’t stand **retarted** , pretentious “modernist” poets \ (coloration mine) AIGH! I can tell why you can’t follow the thought stream. (Note I’m not saying I find the poetry good, so much as I can follow what she means at least some.) You’re not very good with words, are you? The word you wanted there is **[retarded](http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary)**. I know that’s how you likely say it, and you might have to sound things out as you type them. Please try to remember this for the next time you have to type that word though. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/22 "2006-01-25T20:22:28Z")
Maybe **Argent** really meant to call her “retarted”, as in tarted-u p-again? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/23 "2006-01-25T20:26:50Z")
Oh by the way, although I’m not a fan of Mina Loy’s poetry in general myself, I confess to really enjoying the last stanza of her “Apology for Genius”: > [@](#): > > While to your eyes > A delicate crop > of criminal mystic immortelles > stands to the censor’s scythe. Criminal mystic immortelles. Criminal mystic immortelles. Criminal mystic immortelles. Wheee! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/24 "2006-01-25T20:33:01Z")
Oh, and one more thing: > [@Argent Towers](#): > > Nobody should subject people to horrible “poetry” like this!!! Well, [Ezra Pound](http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/engl/VSALM/mod/wolkowski/main.html) didn’t seem to mind it: > [@](#): > > In 1921 Ezra Pound wrote to Marianne Moore: " […] is there anyone in America except you, Bill [William Carlos Williams] and Mina Loy who can write anything of interest in verse?" You’re completely entitled to your own opinion, of course, but you’re also entitled to know that at least one of the major English-language poets of the twentieth-century (although quite a controversial figure himself, of course) completely disagreed with you. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/25 "2006-01-25T20:35:24Z")
I thought she was great in the [Thin Man](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001485/) movies. ---
**Author:** ![Battle\_Pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/26 "2006-01-25T20:40:54Z")
Oh, I don’t know. I think ending the ‘poem’ with: > [@](#): > > HORSESHIT. HORSESHIT. HORSESHIT. Shows a level of self-critique rarely seen in modern artists. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/27 "2006-01-25T20:43:05Z")
> [@](#): > > (On the subject, and for anyone who doesn’t know the works of Philip Larkin, this is how to write proper angst.) Or Charles Bukowski. He’d chew these posers up, and then go have a drink. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/28 "2006-01-25T21:05:03Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > (On the subject, and for anyone who doesn’t know the works of Philip Larkin, this is how to write proper angst.) Well, if the OP didn’t like the “pretentious” Mina Loy, I’m not sure he’d really get grooving on Larkin lines like > [@](#): > > Even … but why put it into words? > Isolate rather this element > > That spreads through other lives like a tree > And sways them on in a sort of sense (And if he’s against poets being “self-indulgent” and “masturbatory”, to quote the thread title, he’s not likely to appreciate Larkin’s “Love again: wanking at ten past three”! ;)) > [@Ogre](#): > > Or Charles Bukowski. He’d chew these posers up, and then go have a drink. [Bukowski](http://bukowski.net/poems/hereiam.php)? “While all the fear of the wasted years/ laughs between my toes”? That Bukowski? Larkin and Bukowski may have used rougher language and more cuss words than Loy (natch, they weren’t writing in the Edwardian era), but both of them could turn out what the OP would probably consider equally silly, pretentious, self-indulgent phrases. ---
**Author:** ![velvetjones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/5f9b8f/32.png) [@velvetjones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velvetjones)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/29 "2006-01-25T21:13:55Z")
My best friend keeps dragging me to this poetry reading group at a local pub. The place is an absolute dive. We sit through about 3 hours of various people standing up and getting their 5 minutes of fame while reading poetry, theirs or someone else’s. Some of it is interesting and thought provoking but most of it is just shit. It is good that they have many varieties of beer there. It makes the poetry go down easier. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/30 "2006-01-25T21:20:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Bukowski? “While all the fear of the wasted years/ laughs between my toes”? That Bukowski? > > Larkin and Bukowski may have used rougher language and more cuss words than Loy (natch, they weren’t writing in the Edwardian era), but both of them could turn out what the OP would probably consider equally silly, pretentious, self-indulgent phrases. Yes, and frequently did. However, from the same poem, > [@](#): > > I promised myself never to write old man poems > but this one’s funny, you see, excusable, be- > cause I’ve long gone past using myself and there’s > still more left > here at 3 a.m. He knew the poem was self-indulgent, and yet he was still capable of making it work. You’ll not find that kind of self-awareness in Loy’s featured poem in the OP. Loy’s poem seeks to be intimate without actually revealing anything about the poet. It’s narcissistic without having any point or awareness. With Bukowski, you always knew you were getting the real thing, even when he wrote poems and stories about how full of shit he was. I value that quality very much. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/31 "2006-01-25T21:29:27Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Well, if the OP didn’t like the “pretentious” Mina Loy, I’m not sure he’d really get grooving on Larkin lines like… You clipped lines (or indeed you isolated rather that element) with the intention of making something less clear. To my mind it makes perfect sense, but requires a distinct amount of thought to parse the syntax - rather than being a stream-of-consciousness jumble of words. > [@](#): > > And if he’s against poets being “self-indulgent” and “masturbatory”, to quote the thread title, he’s not likely to appreciate Larkin’s “Love again: wanking at ten past three”! 😉 Touché. 😃 Nobody could accuse this of being pretentious, though. > [@](#): > > They fuck you up, your mum and dad. > They may not mean to, but they do. > They fill you with the faults they had > And add some extra, just for you. > > But they were fucked up in their turn > By fools in old-style hats and coats, > Who half the time were soppy-stern > And half at one another’s throats. > > Man hands on misery to man. > It deepens like a coastal shelf. > Get out as early as you can, > And don’t have any kids yourself. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/32 "2006-01-25T21:30:47Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > To my mind it makes perfect sense Should read: “To my mind it makes perfect sense in the context of the rest of the poem”. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/33 "2006-01-25T21:51:01Z")
Oh granted, there’s lots of good stuff in both Larkin and Bukowski, and I’m fond of poems by both of them (Larkin somewhat less so, maybe, but who’s counting). My attempted point was just that there can be as much self-regarding “posing” in rough-n-tough, butch, masculine, dirty-word poems as in the more mannered, swoony affectations of Loy. (And the one thing I hate about Larkin’s “This Be the Verse” is that a coastal shelf **doesn’t** actually “deepen”. The point of the coastal shelf is that it’s **shallow** , a raised shelf around a continent’s coast. He used the concept because he wanted the rhyme with “self”, and he used it wrong. Grrrr. Other than that, though, yes, great poem.) ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/34 "2006-01-25T21:55:07Z")
Never considered that. The image I always got was of the fall-off cliff on the edge of the coastal shelf. But yes, on consideration you’re completely right. [Forgot this was the pit… sorry] But yes, on consideration you’re completely right, pigfucker. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/35 "2006-01-25T21:57:11Z")
My Brain Hurts. Sometimes I Like To Hit Myself With Bricks. And Then I Go Mad. Mad One Smash Mad Two Smash ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/36 "2006-01-25T22:03:09Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > Stream of consciousness stuff. It’s an amusing peek into the rattling’s of the poet’s mind. I like it! Meh. Hunter S. Thompson does(did) this kind of thing much better. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/37 "2006-01-25T22:24:02Z")
Eh. She’s no [William Topaz MacGonagall](http://www.it-serve.co.uk/poetry/Mcgonagall/newtaybridge.php). ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/38 "2006-01-25T23:00:45Z")
> [@HPL](#): > > One > Smash > Mad > Two > Smash _One Smash Two Smash Green Smash Hulk Smash_ by Dr. Banner ---
**Author:** ![booklyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e57/32.png) [@booklyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/booklyn)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/39 "2006-01-25T23:14:47Z")
The Head Of The Hatra Apollo -missing from the Iraqi National Museum, Baghdad, April 2003 No light can gild the sun-god’s cheek but strains through burlap now, Phoibos the refugee, his head a marble cabbage in a sack, Jouncing east by pickup down a dirt track, Across Seleucid wastes, the Parthian plains, once more fortune’s tourist, bobbing free. Or not- Just stashed behind a rubbish mound Where bare-boned goats might crop a scraggy meal, Scant miles from the museum’s shattered room Stripped of laurel and oracles, his loom of sacred strings, No Horai here spin round, Just pacing men who wait to close the deal. A goatherd sings, slings a Kalashnikov, The godhead mute since looters hacked it off. By Peter Spagnuolo ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585/40 "2006-01-25T23:20:20Z")
My mother had a book, called Listen to the Warm by a man named Rod McKuen. It is without a doubt the stupidest pile of drivel ever invented. I could stab myself in the eyes just thinking about reading it. [Don’t say I didn’t warn you…](http://www.mckuen.com/poetry/jenny.htm) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mina-loy-self-indulgent-masturbatory-cunt-of-a-poet/341585.md?page=3)