I have tried, too, to capture more of Parker's voice in this rewrite, which switches to the first person.
Susan
Dottie Parker
As poet, critic, screenwriter, and playwright,
I won celebrity by cracking wise,
took refuge in the bottle from the daylight,
but wrote of life without the pretty lies:
the faithless men who loved me “in their fashion”;
the Algonquin Table wits, who would betray
their mother for a quip; my hopeless passion
for suicide, the one that got away.
My deadpan comebacks were reported widely.
Though others’ were as cutting, none were faster.
“Age before beauty,” said Clare Boothe Luce, snidely.
“Pearls before swine,” I answered, sweeping past her.
Blacklisted by McCarthy, still I cling
to leftist goals, despise the upper crust,
and leave my goods to Martin Luther King
for social equity. Excuse my dust.
|
Linear Mode
