Verse & cartoons about a cockroach named "archy" who's a reincarnation of a free-verse poet & "mehitabel", a cat who's a reincarnation of Cleopatra. It's typed in lower-case b/c the cockroach isn't strong enuf to make the upper-case letters. I reckon this is an off-hand tribute to e e cummings but maybe not since cummings wd've been around 20 when this 1st appeared in the papers in 1916. Maybe cummings was influenced by marquis?

Anyway, when I 1st ran across this I probably thought that it had a strong premise & that's why I read it. However, I don't remember being ultimately that impressed by it. Hollywood shd do a remake w/ special effects & lots of inter-species sex. ( )

A potent mix of witty free form poetry and some top-notch drawings by Herriman make this volume a definite winner. These pieces originally appeared in newspapers and magazines in the 1916-1926 era, and numerous topical references to Prohibition and the like still keep their humour. A lot more thoughtful than many other pieces considered weightier. ( )

Archy is a cockroach who was a free verse poet in a previous life and who types up his thoughts on the boss’s typewriter when everyone is gone for the night. His best friend is an alley cat named Mehitabel who is always gay. They appeared in Marquis’ newspaper column in the early twentieth century. What I liked most about this book is that Marquis uses Archy to remind us that we should look at the world from perspectives other than our own. Archy gets quite philosophical at times, and my favorite quote from him is “If you get gloomy, just take an hour off and sit and think how much better this world is than hell. Of course it won’t cheer you up much if you expect to go there.” ( )

Recommended by my grandfather

These are some of my favorite poems and have been since my youth. According to his note, I gave thjis to my father when I was twelve. I suppose I must have had reason (a hint from my mother?) that he would like it --I no onger recall that incident, but I know I personally loved many of them, notably "Freddie the Rat Perishes" a genuinely heroic story in tough-guy verse --"they mixed it and the centipede succumbed" and "archy interviews a pharaoh" -- "the ra-ra boys in the seti set spent all their time ...having pyramids sent home to try on" and (on being told this is a beerless country)"my political opponents back home always maintained I wuld wind up in hell, and it seems they had the right dope.'" --and the one I always recite at Hallowe'en"Mehitabel in the catacombs" --"and here is a duchess that loved a yegg/with her lipless mouth that once drank bliss/ down to the dreg of its ultimate dreg/all men's lover's come to this" --which is actually part of a ballade with duble refrain "skeleton rattle your mouldy leg/all men's lovers come to this." ( )