Reddit mentions of The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel (Penguin Classics)

Thanks for posting this! I think the play was based on a charming book of poetry written in the early 1900s by Don Marquis called Archy & Mehitabel. Loved the book when I found it in college, but had no idea it was turned into a play or a cartoon!

Archy was a cockroach who was the reincarnated soul of a free verse poet. He would write poetry by jumping on the keys of a typewriter so all the poems were kind of e.e. cummings style, no capital letters or punctuation.

His best friend was an alley cat named Mehitabel who was also a reincarnated soul - she'd been Cleopatra in a former life.

Here's a link to some of Archy's poetry