What Fresh Hell is This? Why Dorothy Parker?

I've decided to take an online  poetry course on Universal Class, and this is my first assignment. I've decided that posting the assignments on my blog holds me double accountable for the content. It's been a while since I've written about literature, so I felt a bit rusty, but it slowly became fun. Cheers!

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Many years ago, I purchased The Portable Dorothy Parker. Immediately, I noted how completely un-portable it really is -- the thing is huge! It requires an oversized purse or backpack if you want to take it along to read on the train or on your coffee break, and you certainly wouldn’t want to lug it around for too long. I think that’s Dorothy’s little joke, though. Her sense of humor is both delightful and deprecating, and it rings through even in the title of her anthology.

I’ve read a few of her short stories, but mostly I just adore those poems. There’s something refreshing about her style, and her pacing draws me in. She has a certain rhythm and rhyming pattern that much of my early poetry relates to, and a sort of humor my older self understands. While, a younger version of me relished in her love (or lack thereof) poems, it is her more philosophical pieces that strike me now. Take “Philosophy” (aptly named) for instance.

If I should labor through daylight and dark,
Consecrate, valorous, serious, true,
Then on the world I may blazon my mark;
And what if I don’t, and what if I do?

There’s something about this poem that rings true to me as an artist, and something about her “I don’t give a damn” attitude that rings true to me as a person. She almost always throws in that final zing at the end, which I also adore. For instance in “Indian Summer,” another favorite which appears just above “Philosophy” in my anthology. She ends with, “And if you do not like me so, To hell, my love, with you!”

I don’t know that I’ve yet mastered her gift of the zing, but I surely like to end my poetry, my films, and my writing with a bit of a twist. Here’s one I wrote during the National Poetry Month challenge two years ago after a disastrous cupcake baking experience.

Cake,
imploded upon itself
and
burning remnants,
remind me
I'm no Martha

Campy smells
and a snowy outdoors
coming in
to lessen the smoke
tell me
laugh,
don't cry,
sometimes smoke gets in
your eyes

And you forget,
it's a better memory

I’m glad Dorothy Parker left us with so many of her memories, lessons, quips, and stories. She took her miseries, and made her readers a little happier. I guess that’s what I always aim to do with my poetry – take my own lessons,  ideas,  joys, and pains, and make those who read my words a little happier by seeing they’re not alone.