archy by Isaac CatesĪt night, he would jump on Marquis’ typewriter keys to write satirical poems, all in lower case as he couldn’t reach the shift key, which naturally left absolutely no energy for punctuation.
#Archy and mehitabel poems free#
archy was a frustrated free verse poet, forced into journalism for money.
Marquis, was a poet, playwright, writer of 35 novels and journalist for Harpers, Cosmopolitan, and the New York Herald Tribune.
Just buy this book already! You won't regret it.On March 30th 2016 at Jimmy’s No 43 in Greenwich Village, New York, an event was held to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of archy, the cockroach poet invented by Don Marquis for his column ‘Sun Dial’ in The Evening Sun. The extra material is new to me, but the poetry is well worth it and the prices are similar. I haven't read the annotated version, but I think it should be reviewed because it contains all the original poems and extra material. It stands alone in terms of style and subject. I performed parts of it for competitive Speech in high school and a great many people who hear a great deal of poetry thought it was great. I cannot recommend this book enough, though I do say that often in my reviews.because I only review books I love or hate. He's always in character, which is pretty impressive to write as though one were a almost makes you believe in Archy at any age, and that is a treasure. cummings style of writing.because Archy the bug is too small to hit the shift key of his unknowing human's keyboard. Each poem is funny and memorable, made all the more charming by their e.e. His cat friend Mehitabel is equally interesting, claiming she is actually the reincarnated Cleopatra, which I think most cats believe. A masterpiece of early twentieth-century humor!Īrchy is a familiar character in an unfamiliar situation, a witty and sympathetic poet stuck in the body of a cockroach thanks to reincarnation. What a great collection! And the annotations add to the background information in helpful ways, giving context to Don Marquis's world of prohibition, WWI, speakeasys, and the slang of the day. He cannot operate a shift key to create capitalization or punctuation, so the effect of his "vers libre" (free verse) poems are-at least to his mind-unintentionally hilarious. Archy can only type one key at a time on the typewriter, literally by thrusting himself headfirst onto the key. The 'poems' are presented in order for probably the first time since they were originally printed in Don Marquis's original newspaper column. That same column, and probably all the others in the series, are presented in this annotated collection.
#Archy and mehitabel poems series#
I first read an excerpt from the "Archy and Mehitabel" series of newspaper columns (written by the exceptionally dry wit and skilled humorist Don Marquis back in the early 1900s, around the time of World War I) in an old American literature anthology owned by my mother, and remember that as I read it aloud with my mother listening, I had to stop several times because my laughter was making it impossible to keep speaking.
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