Art by George Herriman for archy and mehitabel (public domain)

(5) DON MARQUIS –

archy & mehitabel (1927)

*

“i look back on my life

and it seems to me

just one damned kitten

after another”

*

And now some light fantasy – and poetry – creeps into my stories and works of literature, literally in the form of cockroach protagonist archy. Yes, that lower case is intended.

In archy and mehitabel, archy is no ordinary cockroach, but a reincarnated (human) free verse or ‘vers libre’ poet, writing his verse-stories each night by laboriously hurling himself at the keys of a typewriter in the newspaper office. Since he is unable to also operate the shift key, all of his verse is written without capitalization or punctuation.

However, archy also finds himself the poet-chronicler of mehitabel, my favorite feline of fiction (with an archetypal feline personality) – alley cat, dancer and self-identified reincarnation of Cleopatra.