Dorothy Parker trio
Dorothy Parker was an American short-story writer and poet known for her witty remarks. Early in the 1920s she had been one of the founders of the famous Algonquin Round Table at the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan and was by no means the least of a group of dazzling wits that included Robert Benchley, Robert E. Sherwood, and James Thurber. It was there, in conversations that frequently spilled over from the offices of The New Yorker, that Parker established her reputation as one of the most brilliant conversationalists in New York. Her rapier wit became so widely renowned that quips and mots were frequently attributed to her on the strength of her reputation alone. She came to epitomize the liberated woman of the 1920s. (Encyclopedia Britannica Online) A firm believer in civil rights, she bequeathed her literary estate to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Upon his assassination some months later, the estate was turned over to the NAACP. (www.poets.org)
Here are a few of her poems, taken from The Portable Dorothy Parker, New York: Penguin Books, 1976.
General Review of the Sex Situation
Woman wants monogamy;
Man delights in novelty.
Love is woman's moon and sun;
Man has other forms of fun.
Woman lives but in her lord;
Count to ten, and man is bored.
With this the gist and sum of it,
What earthly good can come of it?
Observation
If I don't drive around the park,
I'm pretty sure to make my mark.
If I'm in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again.
If I abstain from fun and such,
I'll probably amount to much;
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.
Fair Weather
This level reach of blue is not my sea;
Here are sweet waters, pretty in the sun,
Whose quiet ripples meet obediently
A marked and measured line, one after one.
This is no sea of mine, that humbly laves
Untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm.
I have a need of wilder, crueler waves;
They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.
So let a love beat over me again,
Loosing its million desperate breakers wide;
Sudden and terrible to rise and wane;
Roaring the heavens apart; a reckless tide
That casts upon the heart, as it recedes,
Splinters and spars and dripping, salty weeds
Here are a few of her poems, taken from The Portable Dorothy Parker, New York: Penguin Books, 1976.
General Review of the Sex Situation
Woman wants monogamy;
Man delights in novelty.
Love is woman's moon and sun;
Man has other forms of fun.
Woman lives but in her lord;
Count to ten, and man is bored.
With this the gist and sum of it,
What earthly good can come of it?
Observation
If I don't drive around the park,
I'm pretty sure to make my mark.
If I'm in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again.
If I abstain from fun and such,
I'll probably amount to much;
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.
Fair Weather
This level reach of blue is not my sea;
Here are sweet waters, pretty in the sun,
Whose quiet ripples meet obediently
A marked and measured line, one after one.
This is no sea of mine, that humbly laves
Untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm.
I have a need of wilder, crueler waves;
They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.
So let a love beat over me again,
Loosing its million desperate breakers wide;
Sudden and terrible to rise and wane;
Roaring the heavens apart; a reckless tide
That casts upon the heart, as it recedes,
Splinters and spars and dripping, salty weeds
posted by B. Ryan | 8/28/2006 02:45:00 PM
2 Comments:
You know, I saw a certain level of truth in "Observation". By that, I mean to say that I feel exactly the way the writer does sometimes! Sure, there are plenty of things that I should be doing, that I could be doing to better myself, to work towards maximizing my potential and all that, but you have to make sure you're enjoying yourself in life, too.
"Observation" reminds me of a certain nugget of wisdom given by The Wheel of Morality from Animaniacs. The one I'm thinking of inverted a Benjamin Franklin adage as: "Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy, but socially dead."
I meant to comment on these poems ages ago...sorry it has taken me so long. I really like this set especially the last one. Since she seems to be talking about men and women in the first two my interpretation of the last is that just because two people are quiet, calm, and seem to get along maybe they aren't meant for each other. You need to be with someone who can test you, excite you, bring out emotions, even if it hurts sometimes - it makes you feel alive, and that is a relationshhip worth being in. This could be a very far fetched interpretation - I don't read a lot of poetry, but this poem struck me for some reason.
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