Waxing Poetic: A Fairly Sad Tale by Dorothy Parker

     Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was an American poet, short story writer, and satirist.  She is best known for her wit and wisecracks.  She had an unhappy childhood, went through two marriages (two to the same man), and survived several suicide attempts.  She grew increasingly dependent on alcohol.  Her wisecracks and caustic wit characterize her poetry.
     She was a founding member of The Algonquin Round Table, a group of journalists, editors, actors and press agents that met on a regular basis at the Algonquin Hotel in New York.  The group began lunching together in 1919 and continued for about eight years.  During this time, Dorothy wrote for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Vogue.  She said of those early years:  "Silly of me to blame it on dates, but so it happened to be.  Dammit, it was the twenties, and we had to be smarty."   In her later years, she came to denigrate the group:

These were no giants.  Think who was writing in these days - Lardner, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Hemingway.  Those were the real giants.  The Round Table was just a lot of people telling jokes and telling each other how good they were.  Just a bunch of loudmouths showing off, saving their gags for days, waiting for a chance to spring them...There was no truth in anything they said.  It was the terrible day of the wisecrack, so there didn't have to be any truth...

     She was often dismissive of her talents and her wild reputation, as the following quotes indicate:

                      I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true.

That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone:  Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.

      In the thirties, she moved to Hollywood and did screenwriting.  Throughout the rest of her life she was a vocal advocate of civil rights and was placed on the Hollywood blacklist during the McCarthy era.  When she died, she bequeathed her estate to the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. foundation.
     In the following poem she laments her disappointing life.

A Fairly Sad Tale

I think that I shall never know
Why I am thus, and I am so.
Around me, other girls inspire
In men the rush and roar of fire,
The sweet transparency of glass,
The tenderness of April grass,
The durability of granite;
But me- I don't know how to plan it.
The lads I've met in Cupid's deadlock
Were- shall we say?- born out of wedlock.
They broke my heart, they stilled my song,
And said they had to run along,
Explaining, so to sop my tears,
First came their parents or careers.
But ever does experience
Deny me wisdom, calm, and sense!
Though she's a fool who seeks to capture
The twenty-first fine, careless rapture,
I must go on, till ends my rope,
Who from my birth was cursed with hope.
A heart in half is chaste, archaic;
But mine resembles a mosaic-
The thing's become ridiculous!
Why am I so? Why am I thus?

   The film, Dorothy Parker and the Vicious Circle is a portrayal of her life and her time spent with The Algonquin Round Table.  Jennifer Jason Leigh does a wonderful Dorothy with all her wit, loneliness, and overwhelming sadness.