Archy and Mehitabel door motif from the Brooklyn Public Library:

hello everyonein case you haven t heard of memy name is archyi was a vers libre poetwho died and came back as a cockroachi used to pound out my poems on an old typewriterand someone called don marquis took them to the publishernow there are no more typewritersand don marquis is deadi heard he reincarnated as a fruit batThe rest of this review is available elsewhere (the location cannot be given for Goodreads policy reasons)

When newspapers were the dominant medium, were fun, and didn't take themselves so goddam seriously, there were great columnists.Don Marquis was one. archy was his alter ego, a cockroach with the soul of a poet who threw himself on the typewriter keys to express his thoughts. Hence no caps--you can't throw yourself on the caps key and a letter key at the same time. mehitabel was his unruly alley cat sidekick.Great fun, and occasionally wise ("The human race may be doing the best it can, boss, but...

So many good ones, but a couple of my favorite poems: the lesson of the mothi was talking to a moththe other eveninghe was trying to break intoan electric light bulband fry himself on the wireswhy do you fellowspull this stunt i asked himbecause it is the conventionalthing for moths or whyif that had been an uncoveredcandle instead of an electriclight bulb you wouldnow be a small unsightly cinderhave you no senseplenty of it he answeredbut at times we get tiredof using itwe get bored with the ro...

Mrs. Schmidt, my 4th grade teacher read parts of this book to us, just enough to make us want to read it ourselves. God bless Vivian Schmidt. I imagine she is up in heaven teaching all the little angel children.

Quirky, fun, sassy, sometimes a little sad but full of bits and pieces of wisdom.wotthell wotthell

Had I read the back of this book, I would have never read the book itself. A cockroach that writes poems on a typewriter and his cat friend---sounds insipid and revolting doesn't it? However this book is a marvelous oddity which strays far away from cutesiness. It's one of those works where the schtick doesn't take over the rest of the text. Granted, this was never MEANT to be a book in the first place--if I recall correctly this started out as something that showed up in newspapers.

Don Marquis was a newspaper man from the early 20th Century who came up with this series of free verse poems about a cockaroach who's the reincarnation of a verse libre poet. His comic and sad tales of life in the alley with Mehitabel the cat and an assorted cast of unsavory characters stands up over the years because the poetry makes you laugh and think and the personalities in the work are vivid and true.

i forgot how much i loved you, archy, until i read you again. what prompted my reading is silly, and so utterly appropriate-- yes, i typed without an apostrophe. rueful at first, and then remembering you.archy's origins from the first don marquis column that saved his job, his best introduction.***"Dobbs Ferry posseses a rat which slips out of his lair at night and runs a typewriting machine in a garage. Unfortunately, he has always been interrupted by the watchman before he could produce a comp...

A friend at work suggested this as one of her favorite books in the world. I didn't hate it, but I wasn't particularly amused or charmed, either. I thought the gimmick got old quickly. I suppose there are people who look at The Complete Calvin and Hobbes and tire of the kid thinking the tiger is real, too.

Explaining who archy and mehitabel were is just too darn complex. If you enjoy comic verse, do yourself a favor and get this book. (Actually, you can get a good start at this webpage -- http://www.donmarquis.com/archy/ -- as it contains a number of Marquis' poems and a fine introduction to this book.

Charming, surprising, funny and sad. Where else will you find a mummy greet a cockroach as "scatter legged scarab." Supposedly this free verse was just filler for a columnist. Ha. It's also a big reminder of how much more we used to expect from our newspaper readers. I checked the dictionary more than once.Good social commentary.

Some wonderful poems, and a few truly brilliant ones, in a really endearing premise.

I stumbled across Archy and Mehitabel in junior high, and fell in love. I was reminded of this love when Archy and Mehitabel showed up on J Mustich's 1000 Book To Read Before You Die. I had to hunt down the book, grabbing vendors by the ankles as they stalked by on Ebay. Finally, a book was obtained with minimal loss of blood. (The one I am currently hunting is sonnets to a red-haired lady and famous love affairs.) How can anyone resist this? Written in 1927 by Donald Robert Perry Marquis, it go...

First appearing in 1927 Don Marquis and his clever free verse poem of Archy and Mehitabel , Archy the mad typist "poet" cockroach and his kitty friend Mehitabel who was Cleopatra in her past life entertain the reader and remain a classic in American literature. So happy this was made available in digital format, always readily available to make me smile and chuckle endlessly. Archy "the lesson of the mothi was talking to a moththe other eveninghe was trying to break intoan electric light b...

this is part of my list of all time favorites. I nver leave home without a copy. A vers libre poet transmigrates into the body of a cockaroach and becomes the eyes and voice of the "people" through the perspective of a maligned insect. he manages to continue his writings by butting his head onto each key of the typewriter that is at his disposal. it is painstaking work and due to the difficulties in shifting and the mechanics of captalization, his work is sans uppercase and punctuation. Along hi...

I'm putting this is my "read" section, though I have not finished reading it, only because it no longer belongs in my "currently reading" section, as I am not reading it any longer. I do not like it enough to finish it. I was trying to persevere and see the humour and genius, but I only found it annoying and boring. I do not care to read the word "wotthehell" again, especially not in the context of free verse poetry that is often made to rhyme. I guess the philosophical musings of a flea are not...

There is nothing I can say that the website (www.donmarquis.com/archy/) doesn't say better and more completely. Suffice to say that Archie was a vers libre poet in a previous existence and has been reincarnated as a cockroach; Mehitabel is an alley cat with the morals of, well, an alley cat, who is convinced she was once Cleopatra and their adventures are as funny and fresh as they were when first published over 80 years ago in the USA. It is gentle fun but with some sharp insights into the huma...

my best girlfriend and i loved this when we were in high school. archy is a cockroach who types by hopping from key to key on the typewriter, so he can't capitalize anything, and there are some punctuation marks he can't use. mehitabel is his feline friend. very clever and amusing.

I found it helpful to know that it is social commentary (and newspaper space-filler) on daily life in the city during the 1910s and 1920s from a cockroach and a cat.

Thanks, Geoff Wyss, for putting the name of this one in front of me. It reads like Marianne Moore writing bathroom graffiti, and it's terrific.

This book is a compilation of the columns that Don Marquis wrote during the prohibition. The main character is Archy, a cockroach who communicates by jumping on typewriter keys. He writes stories about his life as a cockroach and his former life as a writer. The other featured character is Mehitabel a female alley cat who bemoans many parts of her existence, but mostly the kittens that she never wanted to have. Obviously everything must be a metaphor for something else as prohibition was a time

I read about this book somewhere, and now wish I could remember where it was as it was such a remarkable little read. i've read numerous pieces of it aloud to whoever would listen, such is its cleverness. Written as free verse through the eyes of Archy the cockroach and Mehitabel the cat, with many other creatures included. I particularly loved the lesson of the moth. "We get bored with the routine / and crave beauty / and excitement / fire is beautiful / and we know that if we get / too close i...

The back cover copy claims this is a book of poetry and that it is art. It is neither, but the conceit of a cockroach who writes about a snooty cat is fun. Though the stories are uneven, some are wonderful fun. A very few actually are poems, while the rest are just typed on the page like poetry. George Herriman's illustrations are wonderful, and the reason to get this edition or another that has them. There are extensive Shakespeare references on pages 75,92-3, 110, 115-9, 120-1, 125-7, 140, 159...

I think I read this in High School. It was clever and fun. I have met other English Majors by making obscure references to this book. Apparently ONLY people who go on to be English Majors remember this work.

Oh yes! so true, so bad. and amazingly poetic.

Charming without ever being twee, and just so damn beautiful.

i don't know, this just might be my all time favorite book. how can you resist the chronicles of a cock-roach who types fervently and a house-cat who thinks she is cleopatra re-incarnated???

This book by newspaper reporter Don Marquis collects poems written in the voice of a cockroach named Archy for the Evening Sun in New York beginning in 1916. Archy is said to be a former free verse poet whose soul has "transmigrated" into the body of a cockroach. Because Archy is an insect, he cannot make use of the shift key on the typewriter he uses to compose his poems, so they are all written without capitalization. Archy writes on many topics, and the poems often poke fun at human nature us...

so much fun to read in little bursts! my favs were "why mehitabel jumped", "mehitabel dances with boreas", "the dissipated hornet", "off with the old love", and of course, "cheerio my deario" :)