Before cutting his teeth as novelist and screenwriter, Raymond Chandler tried to make it as a poet. Here are some early poems from the author of The Long Goodbye.
Chandler’s Poetry
Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary
“I think if a woman is absolutely happy with herself, that goes a long way in getting others to accept her choices. But it’s hard to be absolutely happy with yourself, whoever you are. I mean, what kind of maniac is that?” What kind of maniac are you? This interview with Mary Gaitskill from Guernica Magazine is fantastic.
No-Bull Bourbon Reviews
It’s about an hour away from 5 o’clock over here, so that gives you plenty of time to read Chris Newgent’s “No-Bull Bourbon Review” on Hobart’s website. “A true bourbon,” Newgent writes, “is a bourbon with a story worth remembering.” Agreed. And so would Walker Percy.
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“Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?”
In a piece for Oxford American, Mark Edmundson has an important message for incoming college freshpersons.
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Quarterly’s Subscription Service
Cool idea from Quarterly: a subscription service “that enables people to receive physical items in the mail from influential contributors of their choice.” I mean, who wouldn’t want some mail from Maud Newton, Jason Kottke, and Maria Popova (Brain Pickings)?
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A [BARK] Very Literary [BARK] Interview
Claire Messud and James Wood might be “the First Couple of American Fiction,” but I’d also argue that their dachshund, Myskhin, is “the first Dachshund of American Magazine Profiles.” (Sorry, Felix Shteyngart.)
I’m looking for the poem written by Raymond Chandler witht some words written in his poem that talk about “these mean streets” or a “hero” or just “mean Streets”.
I hope someone out here in the cyber world will know and understand what I might be speaking about….please help!
Dennis
“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.
“He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him.
“The story is this man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.”
― Raymond Chandler