On “Archy & Mehitabel”: A Book Review

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.♥