This was one of the first
poems I learned by heart for school, and the cause of a furious stand up row with my
English teacher. Not knowing anything about
don marquis, and
archy's methods of
typing and
punctuation, she huffed and puffed when I came to the end of reciting this poem.
"It's the 'the human cerebrum archy' not '...the human cerebrum. archy.'" she insisted. "There's no full stop there. No pause.
Speak what you read, girl."
"No, no," I said, all smug and self-righteous, "it's written by
archy. There's no punctuation. And that's him signing off."
"I thought you said it was written by someone called Marquis."
"It is. But it's typed by a
cockroach."
"Well," she snorted, "I think I know more about this than you. Anyway, he's talking about the archy of the human
cerebrum, it's one of the terms used to describe the folds and curves of the
brain."
"But...but..."
"We'll hear
less of your cheek, thank you very much. Sit down, and learn a sensible poem next time."
Sadly, next time we got into a fight about the
pronunciation of "
Adlestrop".