To end National Poetry Month a review
of a book of poetry…
Title: Archy
& Mehitabel
Author: Don Marquis
Genre: Poetry
About
the book….
Originally published as a newspaper column starting in 1916,
Don Marquis’ Archy & Mehitabel is
a collection of poetry written by a typewriting cockroach named Archy (formerly
a poet), including poems about his friend the cat, Mehitabel (who claims to have
once been Cleopatra).
What I
think…
First of all, I found the idea of a cockroach using a typewriter
very amusing. It’s not often that you find something like this in a book meant
for adults and this is what actually caused me to pick it up in the first
place.
In sticking with the impression that a cockroach has written these Marquis’ complete lack of capitalization (Archy
can’t press the shift key) and punctuation do take some getting used to, but
after the first couple of poems it was not a problem.
Another aspect I liked
was that many of the poems are accompanied by delightful sketches by George
Herriman. In multiple cases this added to the overall humor of the poems and it
was fun to see how someone else envisioned parts of the poems.
However, while
some of the poems were exceptionally enjoyable, such as “archy at the zoo” or “archy
creates a situation,” others left me feeling rather disappointed. Poems about
or partially in Mehitabel’s words became very similar and repetitive to the
point where I was contemplating skipping some of them. Considering that these were
not originally meant to be read as collection, I am guessing that this probably
would not have annoyed me as much if they had been read in smaller sections at
a time.
To sum it all up…
This is an interesting collection of
poetry, but probably not one I’ll be reaching for on a regular basis. If you’re
looking for a collection of quirky poems, though, this might just be the book
for you.♥
