Mina Loy was born Mina Gertrude Lowy in London on December 27, 1882. She was the oldest of three sisters born to a second-generation Hungarian Jew, Sigmund Lowy, and an English Protestant mother, Julia Bryan. Contrary to her mother's staunch Victorian values, Loy's father initiated her foray into the artistic world by sending her to art school in Munich at seventeen. She continued her studies in London and Paris. An accomplished painter and poet, Loy also tried her hand at writing novels and dramas, acting, fashion and lampshade design, drawing, sculpting, and modeling.

Loy moved to Florence in 1906 with her first husband, Stephen Haweis. She endeared herself with the leading futurist thinkers of the time, including F. T. Marinetti and Giovanni Papini. Inspired by the futurist call for the rejection of the status quo in literary construction, Loy began to experiment with free verse poetry, abandoning conventional aesthetics...