Did you know that Dorothy Parker co-screenwrote “A Star is Born,” the incredible film that starred Judy Garland?
Because it’s the week for it, here’s another tribute to the short story, poet, screenplay writing queen Parker (August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967), this time from fellow blogger BCarter3 — and make sure to click her post to read the poem’s surprise ending …
It’s been 124 years since the birth of Dorothy Parker. Poet, critic, short story writer, political activist, and one of the greatest wits of the 20th century.
I do not like my state of mind; I’m bitter, querulous, unkind. I hate my legs, I hate my hands, I do not yearn for lovelier lands. I dread the dawn’s recurrent light; I hate to go to bed at night. I snoot at simple, earnest folk. I cannot take the gentlest joke. I find no peace in paint or type. My world is but a lot of tripe. I’m disillusioned, empty-breasted. For what I think, I’d be arrested. I am not sick, I am not well. My quondam dreams are shot to hell. My soul is crushed, my spirit sore; I do not like me any more. I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse. I ponder…
Writer and wit extraordinaire, Dorothy Parker: August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967
“The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”
― Dorothy Parker
At a time when women were supposed to be stay-at-home moms and the writers who got press tended to be men, Dorothy Parker hit the 1920s running — her mouth off as well as her pen. She was known as much for her biting wit as she was for her phenomenal writing.
She began at the New Yorker, where work days often included long boozy lunches with fellow stellar writers at New York’s fancy Algonquin Hotel.
In my early teens, I first read “The Portable Dorothy Parker.” Each of the short stories and poems included in it is a gem. I was hooked!
Wiki describes her as ‘poet, short story writer, critic, and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles.’ In addition, she wrote many enormously successful screenplays with her gay husband, Alan Campbell, who she married twice.
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Happiness Between Tails by da-AL 