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Dorothy Parker (1898-1937)

American short story writer, poet, critic and one-time playwright. Best remembered for her dry and acidic wit, Parker's life was the subject of the 1995 film Mrs. Parker and Her Vicious Circle. Her most famous books include Enough Rope, After Such Pleasures, and Here Lies, none of which are yet PD. She also collaborated with Elmer Rice on a 1924 play, Close Harmony (not PD).

LITERATURE PICKS OF THE MONTH

"Any Porch"
Dorothy Parker (d. 1967)

Those who have seen Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, the recent film biography of Dorothy Parker, will undoubtedly find interest in "Any Porch," Parker's first published poem for which she was paid. The piece appeared in the September 1915 issue of Vanity Fair, and entered the public domain in 1991. The author had not yet married, and was therefore using her birth name Rothschild.

The following excerpt, somewhat clumsy in style, demonstrates Parker's youth, but also her promise:

"I'm reading that new thing of Locke's -
So whimsical, isn't he? Yes-"
"My dear, have you seen those new smocks?
They're nightgowns-no more, and no less."
"I don't call Mrs. Brown bad, She's un-moral, dear, not immoral-"
"Well really, it makes me so mad. To think what I paid for that coral!"
"My husband says, often, 'Elsie, You feel things too deeply, you do-'"
"Yes, forty a month, if you please, Oh, servants impose on me, too."

"Men: A Hate Song; I Hate Men. They Irritate Me"
Dorothy Parker (d. 1967)

Two years after Vanity Fair's publication of "Any Porch" (see above), the magazine published a monthly series of poems that Parker called "Hate Songs." These biting criticisms of distinct personality types became immensely popular and set Parker's reputation as both an outstanding poet and unforgiving cynic.

"Men: A Hate Song" is a long poem about several different types of men, beginning with the "Serious Thinkers":

There are the serious thinkers,-
There ought to be a law against them.
They see life, as through shell-rimmed glasses, darkly.
They are always drawing their weary hands
Across their wan brows.
They talk about Humanity
As if they had just invented it;
The have to keep helping it along.
They revel in strikes.
And they are eternally getting up petitions.
They are doing a wonderful thing for the Great Unwashed,-
They are living right down among them.
They can hardly wait
For "The Masses" to appear on the newsstands,
And they read all those Russian novels,
The sex best sellers.

Subsequent "Hate Song" victims included actresses, actors, bohemians, office colleagues, bores, wives, college boys, party attendees, summer resort vacationers, and film characters.