The Widow’s Jazz
Mina Loy was a revolutionary poet. Her poems stood out from the rest because of her innate ability to push boundaries, and her talent to break free of typical predictable poetic elements. The Widow’s Jazz is a poem that explores a widow’s journey after her husband’s death. Along the way she finds her desires that have been oppressed by her previous life, and by her husband. Through her journey she rediscovers herself and her sexual life as a woman, but after all is said and done she finds herself in almost the same life she had before the death of her husband.
However, her husband is not the only oppressor in this poem. In the beginning of the poem the speaker recalls the oppression African Americans by the White population. The African American community is going through this trauma at the time that Loy wrote the poem in 1931, and later we can see the parallel she draws between her feelings of own repression and that of African American community. Loy seems to be aiming to shed light on different types of oppression and how in its own way can unite different groups of people. Loy uses outside oppressors to connect people, but her speaker in the poem is also an oppressor. She limits herself in the end of the poem, and although she has found and acknowledged her own desires she will not let herself fully commit to them. Instead she lets them die along with her deceased husband.
The topic of Jazz is also very important to the poem, it is one of the many tools she uses to convey her position as a modernist poet. Loy uses it as a reference to modern art, and with the use of this tool Loy can push forward the emotions she is intertwining with her images and by doing this she is furthering her lament with more than simply her words. The jazz movement as a whole represented a kind of smooth sexuality, and the widow in the poem is able to discover her own sexuality in her new found situation. Mina Loy not only uses jazz to express her ideas, but also Greek images. The Greek images she chooses are directly related to her struggle as a widow who is stuck between a place of mourning and rediscovery.
While The Widow’s Jazz is about the widow’s own desire and re-acquaintance with herself it is also about her mourning. Although her husband did limit her in certain areas of her life, the widow did love him. She does feel the magnitude of her loss and is trying to sort through it. Her use of dark images and depressing vernacular are both obvious indicators of her lament.
Mina Loy’s poem The Widow’s Jazz sets out to show modernist ideals, convey complex emotions, and oppressions through images and art. Loy connects people from different walks of life and different communities in her poem. Her deep expressive thoughts shine through with her powerful images and word choice, and is a great example of how no matter what your skin color or position in life that pain effects us all the same way.
Mina Loy was a revolutionary poet. Her poems stood out from the rest because of her innate ability to push boundaries, and her talent to break free of typical predictable poetic elements. The Widow’s Jazz is a poem that explores a widow’s journey after her husband’s death. Along the way she finds her desires that have been oppressed by her previous life, and by her husband. Through her journey she rediscovers herself and her sexual life as a woman, but after all is said and done she finds herself in almost the same life she had before the death of her husband.
However, her husband is not the only oppressor in this poem. In the beginning of the poem the speaker recalls the oppression African Americans by the White population. The African American community is going through this trauma at the time that Loy wrote the poem in 1931, and later we can see the parallel she draws between her feelings of own repression and that of African American community. Loy seems to be aiming to shed light on different types of oppression and how in its own way can unite different groups of people. Loy uses outside oppressors to connect people, but her speaker in the poem is also an oppressor. She limits herself in the end of the poem, and although she has found and acknowledged her own desires she will not let herself fully commit to them. Instead she lets them die along with her deceased husband.
The topic of Jazz is also very important to the poem, it is one of the many tools she uses to convey her position as a modernist poet. Loy uses it as a reference to modern art, and with the use of this tool Loy can push forward the emotions she is intertwining with her images and by doing this she is furthering her lament with more than simply her words. The jazz movement as a whole represented a kind of smooth sexuality, and the widow in the poem is able to discover her own sexuality in her new found situation. Mina Loy not only uses jazz to express her ideas, but also Greek images. The Greek images she chooses are directly related to her struggle as a widow who is stuck between a place of mourning and rediscovery.
While The Widow’s Jazz is about the widow’s own desire and re-acquaintance with herself it is also about her mourning. Although her husband did limit her in certain areas of her life, the widow did love him. She does feel the magnitude of her loss and is trying to sort through it. Her use of dark images and depressing vernacular are both obvious indicators of her lament.
Mina Loy’s poem The Widow’s Jazz sets out to show modernist ideals, convey complex emotions, and oppressions through images and art. Loy connects people from different walks of life and different communities in her poem. Her deep expressive thoughts shine through with her powerful images and word choice, and is a great example of how no matter what your skin color or position in life that pain effects us all the same way.