Select language, opens an overlay

Comment

Aug 11, 2011
This collection from Don Marquis is filled with poems both wonderfully catchy and esoteric. It resonated with me at 12 just as it did at 22 and beyond. Marquis' two main characters are starkly juxtaposed as bard and Dionysian vaudeville; together, they capture in fragments: a gritty picture sometimes critical of, sometimes shamefully indulgent in- the sights, sounds, crowds, and highly diglossic nature of a 1920s NYC. If you are very interested in these characters--they resurfaced later, (and re-appropriated by) the beatnik era, where Archy and Mehitabel's lives were set to theatrical music and animation. ... its cheerio my deario that pulls a lady through