{
 "id": "mina-loy/the-black-virginity",
 "title": "The Black Virginity",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Mina Loy",
 "poet_slug": "mina-loy",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1920,
  "venue": "Others for 1919: An Anthology of the New Verse (New York, N. L. Brown, 1920)",
  "note": "First located printing. The volume is titled for 1919 and its imprint reads New York MCMXX with a 1920 copyright. Its acknowledgement lists the poems reprinted from elsewhere and does not list Loy's, stating that the remainder “appeared originally in the magazine, Others, or were contributed to the present anthology direct” — so an earlier Others printing has not been ruled out.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/cu31924022030351"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/mina-loy_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uva.x002129491?urlappend=%3Bseq=396",
   "https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/17374476",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_others-a-magazine-of-the-new-verse_1916-07_3_1/page/27",
   "https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/17390662",
   "https://archive.org/details/othersanantholo01kreygoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cu31924022030351",
   "https://archive.org/details/littlereview07mcke/page/n199",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_others-a-magazine-of-the-new-verse_1917-04_3_6",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_dial_1921-06_70/page/672",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_dial_1921-08_71/page/n15",
   "https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.32106010168349",
   "https://archive.org/details/contact-collection-of-contemporary-writers/page/137",
   "https://personal.colby.edu/~isadoff/map/loy.doc",
   "https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/digital_objects/211477",
   "https://digitalcommons.whitworth.edu/transatlantic/1/"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 57,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 55,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Baby Priests",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On green sward",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yew-closed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Silk beaver",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rhythm of redemption",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fluttering of Breviaries",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Fluted black silk cloaks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hung square from shoulders",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Truncated juvenility",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Uniform segregation",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Union in severity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Modulation",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Intimidation",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pride of misapprehended preparation",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ebony statues training for immobility",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Anaemic jawed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wise saw to one another",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Prettily the little ones",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gesticulate benignly upon one another in the sun buzz⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Finger and thumb circles postulate pulpits",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Profiles forsworn to Donatello",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Munching tall talk vestral shop",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Evangelical snobs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Uneasy dreaming",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In hermetically-sealed dormitories",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not of me or you Sister Saraminta",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of no more or less",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than the fit of Pope’s mitres",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It is an old religion that put us in our places",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here am I in lilac print",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Preposterously no less than the world flesh and devil",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Having no more idea what those are",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What I am",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than Baby Priests of what “He” is",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "or they are⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Messianic mites tripping measured latin ring-a-roses",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Subjugated adolescence",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Retraces loose steps to furling of Breviaries",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In broiling shadows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The last with apostolic lurch",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tries for a high hung fruit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And misses",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Anyway it is inedible",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is always thus",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the Public Garden.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Parallel lines",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An old man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Eyeing a white muslin girl’s school",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all this",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As pleasant as bewildering",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would not eventually meet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am forever bewildered",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Old men are often grown greedy⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What nonsense",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is noon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And salvation’s seedlings",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are headed off for the refectory.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}