Archy and Mehitabel

You might find the subject "Poetry – cockroaches" an improbable one, but if you search the Auckland City Libraries catalogue, you’ll find two books for that heading: Archy and Mehitabel and Archyology. No, they’re not books of poetry about cockroaches. They’re books of poetry by a cockroach, the wise and wisecracking Archy, who entertained readers with iconoclastic observations on pretensions, politics and our place in the cosmos during Don Marquis’ career as a New York newspaper columnist in the 1920s and 30s. He would climb on Marquis’ typewriter at night and jump head first from key to key creating immortal works of "vers libre" -- very very libre, since he couldn’t use the shift key and disdained punctuation.

And who is Mehitabel? The self-described "racy, rowdy, gaunt and free" Mehitabel is an alley cat, the reincarnation of Cleopatra and, if not exactly Archy’s muse, definitely the star of the book. These two unlikely friends cavort and philosophize through life and the poems and I laughed as hard now, rereading them, as I did when I was twelve and first read them.

E.B. White, the author of the quirky classics for children Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web, called Marquis "a very funny man, his product rich and satisfying, full of sad beauty, bawdy adventure, political wisdom, and wild surmise; full of pain and jollity, full of exact and inspired writing." Frank Herbert, the author of "Dune", is a fan as well. The books have never been out of print. But maybe the best way to introduce Archy is by letting him speak for himself:

            The lesson of the moth

I was talking to a moth

the other evening

he was trying to break into

an electric light bulb

and fry himself on the wires

why do you fellows

pull this stunt i asked him

because it is the conventional

thing for moths or why

if that had been an uncovered

candle instead of an electric

light bulb you would

now be a small unsightly cinder

have you no sense

plenty of it he answered

but at times we get tired

of using it

we get bored with the routine

and crave beauty

and excitement

fire is beautiful

and we know that if we get

too close it will kill us

but what does that matter

it is better to be happy

for a moment

and be burned up with beauty

than to live a long time

and be bored all the while

so we wad all our life up

into one little roll

and then we shoot the roll

that is what life is for

it is better to be a part of beauty

for one instant and then cease to

exist than to exist forever

and never be a part of beauty

our attitude toward life

is come easy go easy

we are like human beings

used to be before they became

too civilized to enjoy themselves

and before i could argue him

out of his philosophy

he went and immolated himself

on a patent cigar lighter

i do not agree with him

myself i would rather have

half the happiness and twice

the longevity

but at the same time i wish

there was something i wanted

as badly as he wanted to fry himself

archy