Column: A Writer You Should Know About: Dorothy Parker by Night Hope at All poetry

"That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone:

Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment."

- Dorothy Parker, "But the One on the Right," in New Yorker, 1929

"There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit.

Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words."

- Dorothy Parker, "Interview", Paris Review, Summer 1956

Fighting Words

by Dorothy Parker

Say my love is easy had,

Say I'm bitten raw with pride,

Say I am too often sad-

Still behold me at your side.

Say I'm neither brave nor young,

Say I woo and coddle care,

Say the devil touched my tongue-

Still you have my heart to wear.

But say my verses do not scan,

And I get me another man!

Hearthside

by Dorothy Parker

Half across the world from me

Lie the lands I'll never see-

I, whose longing lives and dies

Where a ship has sailed away;

I, that never close my eyes

But to look upon Cathay.

Things I may not know nor tell

Wait, where older waters swell;

Ways that flowered at Sappho's tread,

Winds that sighed in Homer's strings,

Vibrant with the singing dead,

Golden with the dust of wings.

Under deeper skies than mine,

Quiet valleys dip and shine.

Where their tender grasses heal

Ancient scars of trench and tomb

I shall never walk: nor kneel

Where the bones of poets bloom.

If I seek a lovelier part,

Where I travel goes my heart;

Where I stray my thought must go;

With me wanders my desire.

Best to sit and watch the snow,

Turn the lock, and poke the fire.

Threnody

by Dorothy Parker

Lilacs blossom just as sweet

Now my heart is shattered.

If I bowled it down the street,

Who's to say it mattered?

If there's one that rode away

What would I be missing?

Lips that taste of tears, they say,

Are the best for kissing.

Eyes that watch the morning star

Seem a little brighter;

Arms held out to darkness are

Usually whiter.

Shall I bar the strolling guest,

Bind my brow with willow,

When, they say, the empty breast

Is the softer pillow?

That a heart falls tinkling down,

Never think it ceases.

Every likely lad in town

Gathers up the pieces.

If there's one gone whistling by

Would I let it grieve me?

Let him wonder if I lie;

Let him half believe me.

Rainy Night

by Dorothy Parker

Ghosts of all my lovely sins,
Who attend too well my pillow,
Gay the wanton rain begins;
Hide the limp and tearful willow.

Turn aside your eyes and ears,
Trail away your robes of sorrow,
You shall have my further years-
You shall walk with me tomorrow.

I am sister to the rain;
Fey and sudden and unholy,
Petulant at the windowpane,
Quickly lost, remembered slowly.

I have lived with shades, a shade;
I am hung with graveyard flowers.
Let me be tonight arrayed
In the silver of the showers.

Every fragile thing shall rust;
When another April passes
I may be a furry dust,
Sifting through the brittle grasses.

All sweet sins shall be forgot;
Who will live to tell their siring?
Hear me now, nor let me rot
Wistful still, and still aspiring.

Ghosts of dear temptations, heed;
I am frail, be you forgiving.
See you not that I have need
To be living with the living?

Sail, tonight, the Styx's breast;
Glide among the dim processions
Of the exquisite unblest,

Spirits of my shared transgressions,

Roam with young Persephone.
Plucking poppies for your slumber...

With the morrow, there shall be
One more wraith among your number

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/dparker.htm

http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/parker/

http://www.poemhunter.com/dorothy-parker/

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/dorothy_parker/poems

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Dorothy_Parker

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/dorothy_parker.htm

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/parker/parker.htm

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dorothy_Parker

Various poems inspired by famous people:

http://allpoetry.com/list/32270-Inspired-by-Famous-People

My columns on various writers and painters:

http://allpoetry.com/column/by/Night%20Hope

Included in the list

Helpful Columns: • next in list
Inspired by Famous People: • next in list
On Poetry: • next in list
Compilations: • next in list

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Comments

1 - 8 of 8

By me, right now

Adding your comment:
transcendental baby
November 5
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Oh I love Dorothy!
Stuart Higginson
November 5
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Great poems, I chuckled at the one about her bowling her heart down the street. The image was priceless. It's a great series of articles you are running, Wanda. A brilliant way to introduce many people on AP to those whose names they may or may not have known about
JinSays
November 5
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my idol.

What a lovely picture of her, I've never seen it.
this is wonderful, and Im glad you posted.
love,
jin
Theasp
November 5
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You forgot her most famous
Men never make passes at girls who wear glasses
Girls who eat sweets end up with fat seats
- Night Hope
  November 5
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  I didn't forget. I wear glasses. That one always riled me a bit. Besides, I always thought, "No, they don't. The fools." And I imagine anyone who's heard her name knows that one, anyway. Someone showed surprise at a "sensual" poem I'd written.
  I replied, "You've obviously never dated a librarian."
just mercedes
November 5
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Ah, she was a tough smart cookie. I can't help wonder what happened to the format here - she didn't write these as prose, did she?
- Night Hope
  November 5
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  Nah. I was fixing it while you were commenting. Yeah, I always liked her. There was a cartoon of her and Elinor Wylie in the New Yorker in 1927. Both were so well-known, it didn't require identifying them. Dot was in the character of Elinor's mother and said "It's broccoli". Elinor said, "I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it."
- - just mercedes
    November 5
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    lol!
    
    and the verses look much better now!