Proud-pied April: Nose and thumb

Dorothy Parker is another mainstay of my National Poetry Month; I couldn’t get through it without her. She’s not someone you want to binge-read, because poem after poem of biting wit begins to feel like the death of a thousand cuts. She's like the very best Courvoisier: sip a little and savor it.

Parker’s life wasn’t happy; she repeatedly loved not wisely but too well, and her longest relationship was with booze. So it’s not surprising that her short stories are deeply depressing and that her poetry is bitter. Still—like Courvoisier—in moderation, there’s nothing like a bit of her verse to say what you’d like to; if you only had both the skill and the nerve.

“Neither Bloody nor Bowed”

They say of me, and so they should,

It’s doubtful if I come to good.

I see acquaintances and friends

Accumulating dividends,

And making enviable names

In science, art, and parlor games.

But I, despite expert advice,

Keep doing things I think are nice,

And though to good I never come—

Inseparable my nose and thumb!