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archy and mehitabel
were a cockroach and a cat
archy had the soul
of a vers libre poet
and laboriously composed
by jumping on the keys
of don marquis s typewriter at night
while mehitabel supposedly
had the soul of Cleopatra


his output was published
in the new york evening sun
starting in 1916
and later in the tribune
at first as Filler
when marquis couldn t produce his column

in it archy told
marquis of his and
mehitabel s adventures
toujours gai toujours gai
the poems were
a satire of
urban life in
the 1920s

it is probably most famous
for the unusual typography
because archy couldn t
operate the shift key
consequently
the poems themselves
are underrated
and dismissed as gimmicky

books[]

  • Archy and Mehitabel, 1927
  • Archys Life of Mehitabel, 1933
  • Archy Does his Part, 1935
  • The Lives and Times of Archy and Mehitabel, 1940
  • Archyology, 1996 (posthumous)
  • Achyology II, 1998
  • The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel, 2006

plays[]

Mel Brooks co-wrote a musical, Shinbone Alley, based on the poems in 1957

western animation[]

An animated film of the Brooks play was made in 1971.

tropes
Cquote1

there s a dance in the old dame yet
toujours gai toujours gai

Cquote2
Cquote1

boss i am disappointed in
some of your readers they
are always asking how does
archy work the shift so as to get a
new line or how does archy do
this or do that they
are always interested in technical
details when the main question is
whether the stuff is
literature or not

Cquote2
  • No Punctuation Period for the same reason as the lack of capitals
  • Painting the Medium
  • Reincarnation both archy and mehitabel had human souls he a vers libre poet and she cleopatra and many others freddy the rat was a poet before and then there was the suicide club of bugs whose previous human selves had taken their own lives
  • talking animals well a typing animal at least