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
“A hustler wrote this?”
“The book documents its time, a time when homosexuality was illegal, and still described in medical books as a mental illness. It is one of the best firsthand accounts of what it was like to be gay in the mid-20th century — ostracized — separate from the mainstream world. It reveals, through its characters, how young men couldn’t admit, even to themselves, that they were what society deemed perverted.” On the novel City of Night by John Rechy.
Teenage Daydream
“Although I didn’t realize it at the time, I myself was no stranger to being othered.” Over at The Literary Hub, Carla Bruce-Eddings recounts some reading lessons from her teenage self. For a bit of perspective from the other side, here’s our own Nick Ripatrazone on teaching high school and college.
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The Captain’s Doll
German-born footballer Bastian Schweinsteiger might just be living inside the D.H. Lawrence story, “The Captain’s Doll”. Schweinsteiger (who, it is helpful to mention, is the captain of his team) is suing a Chinese toy manufacturer for producing a doll that bears too striking a resemblance to the Manchester United midfielder. Oh, and did we mention that the “figurine” is also wearing a Nazi medal?
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MLP Shuts Down
Mud Luscious Press — the outfit responsible for consistently gorgeous books like Mathias Svalina’s I Am A Very Productive Entrepreneur and Robert Kloss’s The Alligators of Abraham — is closing up shop. Go load up on their remaining inventory. You won’t be sorry.
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Beginnings
Please welcome the newest Millions reader: August Hudson Magee, born Monday morning!
By Way of Beijing
After spending eight years in Beijing, The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos is leaving to work in DC. To commemorate his long period of international journalism, he wrote a farewell post on his blog, Letter from China.
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