Mina Loy, “Aphorisms on Futurism”

Major Points

• Time is relative
  • “The futurist can live a thousand years in one poem.”
• Ditch the past
  • It is reactionary
• Freedom, individuality, lack of prejudices
  • The mind is capable of anything, if you let it
• Move from one “creative exploration” to the next
  • Affirm and affirm
  • Imbibe the whole universe
• Form changes consciousness
  • Not that changed consciousness leads to new forms

As a Modernist text

• Acts as a Futurist manifesto
  • One of the few female ones
• Individualism of the Egoist vein
  • You must follow your own truths
• Fragmented
• Bergsonian duree vision of time (can compress, lengthen at will)

Quotes

• “Accept the tremendous truth of Futurism. Leaving all those—knick-knacks—.”
• “Love the hideous in order to find the sublime core of it.”
• “Forget that you live in houses, in order to live in yourself.”
• “Through derision at Humanity as it appears—to arrive at a respect for man as he shall be.”