November 27, 2009

Archy and Mehitabel

It's a truism — but no less true for that — we often can't get to reality except through literature. Or poetry. Or, in the case of Don Marquis, whatever it was, format-wise, that he wrote in his newspaper columns featuring Archy, the vers-libre poet reincarnated as a cockroach, and Mehitabel, the alley cat who fancied herself the reincarnation of Cleopatra. As Archy put it: "i see things from the under side now" and somehow he manages to explain the meaning of that perspective to us. To talk about this extraordinary work and other literary matters I turned to Michael Sims, editor of The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel and author and editor of several other books. It was a rare delight to talk with Michael; I hope you enjoy hearing from him as much as I did. Total runtime an hour and twelve minutes. Happy Thanksgiving!  ♫