Who Are Archy And Mehitabel?

It is very important that these two names are never given capital letters. The archy poems first appeared in 1931. According to author Don Marquis, he entered his study one day to find a cockroach struggling to use his typewriter. The cockroach identified himself as archy (the lower-case letters are always used, because of course archy can't reach the "shift" key! He gradually reveals his life story and philosophy in a series of unpunctuated free verse poems:
expression is the need of my soul
I ws once a vers libre bard
but I died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach…
He also introduces his friend mehitabel the cat, who is an incarnation of Cleopatra ("at least that is what mehitabel is claiming these days") and a free spirit: "whatthehell archy whatthehell.."
The "archy and mehitabel" poems were, and still are, loved for their wit, warmth and mockery of literary pretensions.

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