Local Girl Writes Book Of Short Verses
Local Girl Writes Book Of Short Verse
There was a young miss in Ann Arbor,
Who deep In her breast did harbor
The urge to write verse
For better or worse;
So she did it. with vim and with
ardor.
And such is the case of Barrett Moulton. 524 Elm St., who heard poet Louis Untermeyer deliver a speech, and then composed a booklet of exceedingly gay verse.
When Bard Untermeyer spoke, he opined that every man was poet. Men? Why not women, wondered Miss Moulton. So she sat down and in two weeks wrote her brochure of verse. She sent a copy to Mr*. Untermeyer. who expressed double pleasure-first at the quality of her verse and secondly at the effect of-his lecture.
“Beer and Skittle*"
'Beer and Skittles" is the title of Miss Moulton’s (or as she signs herself. Miss Barrett’s) booklet and derives, in part, from Poem No. 29 which says, among other things:
Oh w hat in the world is a skittle?
Is it hard, Is it soft, is It brittle?
Do you use it to cook in or spread it on bread.
Is it something man fashioned for soldering lead.
Is it implement, house-pet or victual?
But by Poem No. 34, Miss Barrett is through asking things and says, very positively:
Most men won’t take up
With girls who don't make up.
And then, evidently musing upon the general worthlessness of men. Miss Barrett ends a poem with the verse:
I may recover from the fall
And live to love again.
My heart’s not broken, after all,
It’s just a nasty, sprain.
Although a gay scepticism predominates in her work, irreverently chuckling a bit even when it is melancholy, Miss Barrett occasionally drops her banter and becomes serious. For example, in a verse entitled Twentieth Century. she writes:
Some of them like to kill;
Others—most of them—do it because, they are told.
But it doesn’t make much difference.
The effect is the same.
21 Years Old
Diana Barrett Moulton Is 21 years old, and has lived in Ann Arbor for about seven years. Her courses at the University have been primarily concerned with play production, but she has recently decided, probably another effect of Untermeyer's speech, that writing is a more satisfying business than acting.
Miss Moulton does oil paintings, but confesses to no hobby, aside from the fact that, when younger, she used to enjoy hitting her brother over the head with a sailboat. Her main interest at the moment is the dog she expects to receive for her birthday, and which she will call Endymion, to match her own name, Diana.
She has several literary projects under way at the moment . She is at work on a book for children and has on her desk two unfinished murder mysteries. But she suspects that her second book of verse will be completed before her prose projects.
Diana Barrett Moulton