It's the birthday of poet and short-story writer Dorothy Parker, born in West End, New Jersey (1893). In 1920, she was fired from Vanity Fair because her drama reviews were so harsh, so she put her cynicism and wit into her first book of poems, Enough Rope, and it was a best-seller when it was published in 1926. She went to The New Yorker to write book reviews under the name "Constant Reader," and she was one of the founders of the famous Algonquin Round Table at the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan. She established a reputation as one of the sharpest conversationalists in New York, and she epitomized the liberated woman of the 1920s. Her poems were collected as Not So Deep as a Well (1936), and her short stories were collected in Here Lies (1939). When she was 70, she said, "If I had any decency, I'd be dead. Most of my friends are." And she said, "Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

“Now I know the things I know,
and I do the things I do;
and if you do not like me so,
to hell, my love, with you!”

Dorothy Parker

There was another thread here on e-mule featuring Dorothy a few years back: [www.emule.com]

Les

Good gosh, I've been here that long?

>Yep, Johnny you're now old enough to appreciate the RE-cycle of song:

Comment
--Dorothy Parker

Oh life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea,
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of Roumania.


les

but the little used bookstore is no more

The Marie of Roumania is a poem I used to introduce Dorothy Parker to the local high school Creative Writing class last year. I think it is my favorite of her's.

>her's

I hope you have an editor for your collage publication.

Here's some more of Dorothy's work: [www.poemhunter.com]


Les

Purposely Ungrammatical Love Song
---Dorothy Parker

There's many and many, and not so far,
Is willing to dry my tears away;
There's many to tell me what you are,
And never a lie to all they say.

It's little the good to hide my head,
It's never the use to bar my door;
There's many as counts the tears I shed,
There's mourning hearts for my heart is

There's honester eyes than your blue eyes,
There's better a mile than such as you.
But when did I say that I was wise,
And when did I hope that you were true?

Les

collage publication ?

I'm sure she's doing more than cut-n-paste !

> collage publication ? (greats on your nerves, doesn't it?)

> Purposely Ungrammatical Love Song


Les

yeah, this place is a regular Algonquin Round Table all right