Another of my Poets’ Corner discoveries…

A very Dorothy Parkerish sort of poem - a sarcastic look at courtship rituals, ending with a very satisfying punchline. I did intend to run a more ‘typical’ piece as the first Morley, but his favourite theme seems to be ‘poetry is but a poor imitation of Life’, not something I have a lot of sympathy for :)

He does have a lot of good poems, though, and I’ll certainly be covering a few more - in the meantime, do check out the wonderfully illustrated copy of his book ‘Chimneysmoke’ up at the Poets’ Corner.

Biography

 Morley, Christopher
 b. May 5, 1890, Haverford, Pa., U.S.
 d. March 28, 1957, Roslyn Heights, Long Island, N.Y.
 in full CHRISTOPHER DARLINGTON MORLEY, American writer whose versatile
 works are lighthearted, vigorous displays of the English language.

Morley’s father was a mathematician and his mother a musician and poet. The young Morley studied at Haverford College (B.A., 1910) and was a Rhodes scholar at New College, Oxford (1910-13). Over the years he found success in several fields. He gained popularity with his literary columns in the New York Evening Post (1920-24) and the Saturday Review of Literature (1924-41) and from collections of essays and columns such as Shandygaff (1918). His novels include the innovative The Trojan Horse (1937), a combination of prose, verse, and dramatic dialogue that satirized human devotion to luxury, and the sentimental best-seller Kitty Foyle (1939), about an office girl and a socialite youth. The Old Mandarin (1947) is a collection of witty free verse. Morley also edited Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations (1937, 1948).

– EB

Links

The aforementioned Chimneysmoke:

- http://www.geocities.com/~spanoudi/poems/morley01.html

And here’s one of Parker’s poems, by way of comparison:

‘Unfortunate Coincidence’

  By the time you swear you're his,
  Shivering and sighing,
  And he vows his passion is
  Infinite, undying -
  Lady, make a note of this:
  One of you is lying.

– http://www.suck-my-big.org/blah/coincidence.html

— Martin