A review by quoththegirl
Archy and Mehitabel by Don Marquis

5.0

I flew through archy and mehitabel by Don Marquis. Archy is a cockroach, and he types his poetry by hopping from key to key on the typewriter, so he’s can’t quite manage capital letters. He’s also not fond of punctuation. Mehitabel is an alley cat who believes she is the reincarnated form of Cleopatra. Don Marquis is the brilliant soul who was a journalist for The Evening Sun and began publishing the tales of Archy and Mehitabel in 1916. The poems are wickedly funny, with not a little satire sprinkled throughout. I highly recommend “the moth.” Here’s a bit of one of my other favorites, in which Archy is discussing the universe:

it is rushed
perhaps it has private
knowledge to the effect
that eternity is brief
after all
and it wants to get the big
jobs finished in a hurry
i find it possible to forgive
the universe
i meet it in a give and take spirit
although i do wish
that it would consult me at times
please forgive
the profundity of these
meditations
whenever i have nothing
particular to say
i find myself always
always plunging into cosmic
philosophy
or something