Although Miss Parker gives us in these pages, among other charming fantasies, what she calls a “Pig's-Eye View of Literature,” [Sunset Gun] itself could never be described as a pig's-eye view of life. There is no luxurious wallowing here (except, perhaps, in misery), no sloppiness, no slothful obesity. The poems are lean and quick as a snake. One might say they represented a porcupine's-eye view of life if Miss Parker had not written that “Parable of a Certain Virgin,” beginning:

Oh, ponder, friend, the porcupine;
Refresh your recollection,
And sit a moment, to define
His means of self-protection.

She goes on to describe those means in swift rhythm and comic rhyme until:

Or should pursuers press him hot,
One scarcely needs to mention
His quick and cruel barbs that got
Shakespearean attention;
Or driven to his final ditch.
To his extremest thicket,
He'll fight with claws and molars
which
Is not considered cricket).
How amply armored, he, to fend
The fear of chase that haunts him!
How well prepared our little friend!—
And who the devil wants him?

Well, we want Miss Parker and are willing to pursue her. As a matter of fact, I myself went through a great deal just to get the loan of Enough Rope which is no better book than this, although it is a bit thicker. We are willing to pursue Miss Parker to her extremest thicket in spite of, or rather for the sake of, her quick and cruel barbs.

One of the chief reasons why we like her is that most of us were taught in our childhood that we mustn't “sass back” or thumb our noses, and Miss Parker does these things so well for us. She sasses back at Life, or the Universe, or God, or What Have You, in nimble and absurd rhyme such as we never in the world could have thought of ourselves. And besides, we like her because she laughs at herself. We always like people to laugh at themselves. It takes their attention away from us.

The poems are not all impudent. “Fair Weather,” for instance, is an excellent serious sonnet. But in her milder verses there are phrases that recall Housman and rhythms that are Millaysian, as this:

The day that I was christened—
It's a hundred years, and more!
A hag came and listened
At the white church door.

We listen to her more gleefully when she is bad tempered, shocking, macabre. We like it when she makes us gasp by coming out neatly with this:

Dear dead Victoria
Rotted cosily;
In excelsts gloria.
And R. I. P.

These three letters sound so reckless and indecent! Or—but we ought not to quote any more. That would be giving away too much of what is really the property of the author and her publishers, and we don't want Miss Parker to starve to death. We hope she is not telling the truth when she says:

I'm done with this burning and
giving
And reeling the rhymes of my woes.
And how I'll be making my living.
The Lord in His mystery knows.