Ogden Nash
Frederic Ogden Nash (
August 19,
1902 –
May 19,
1971) was an
American poet best known for writing pithy and funny
light verse.
Ogden Nash was born in
Rye, New York. His father owned and operated an import-export company, and because of business obligations, the family relocated often.
In
1920, Nash entered
Harvard University, only to drop out a year later. He worked his way through a series of jobs, eventually landing a position as an editor at
Doubleday publishing house, where he first began to write poetry.
In
1931 he published his first collection of poems,
Hard Lines, earning him national recognition. Some of his poems reflected an anti-establishment feeling. For example, one verse, entitled
Common Sense, asks:
Why did the Lord give us agility,If not to evade responsibility? When Nash wasn’t writing poems, he made guest appearances on
comedy and
radio shows and toured the
United States and
England, giving lectures at colleges and
universities.
Nash was regarded respectfully by the literary establishment, and his poems were frequently anthologized even in serious collections such as
Selden Rodman's
1946 A New Anthology of Modern Poetry.Nash was the lyricist for the Broadway musical
One Touch of Venus, collaborating with librettist
S. J. Perelman and composer
Kurt Weill. The show included the notable song "Speak Low (When You Speak Love)."
Nash died in
1971 and is interred in
North Hampton, New Hampshire. His granddaughter,
Fernanda Eberstadt, is an acclaimed
author.
|
Bed Riddance, 1970 collection |
Nash was best known for surprising, pun-like rhymes, sometimes with words deliberately misspelled for comic effect, as in his retort to
Dorothy Parker's dictum,
Men seldom make passes/At girls who wear glasses:A girl who is bespectacledShe may not get her nectackledBut safety pins and bassinetsAwait the girl who fassinets.He often wrote in an exaggerated verse form with pairs of lines that rhyme, but are of dissimilar length and irregular meter.
Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man uses this device to good effect. He opens by noting
It is common knowledge to every schoolboy and even every Bachelor of Arts,That all sin is divided into two parts.One kind of sin is called a sin of commission, and that is very important,And it is what you are doing when you are doing something you ortant...He develops this at some length, expounding on the superiority of sins of commission, because
You didn't get a wicked forbidden thrillEvery time you let a policy lapse or forget to pay a bill;You didn't slap the lads in the tavern on the back and loudly cry Whee,Let's all fail to write just one more letter before we go home, and this round of unwritten letters is on me.No, you never get any funOut of things you haven't done...Ogden Nash has written humorous and probably the most popular poems for each movement of the
Camille Saint-Saëns orchestral suite
The Carnival of the Animals, which are often recited when the work is performed.
|
2002 USPS stamp of Ogden Nash with six of his poems in the background |
The US Postal Service released a stamp featuring Ogden Nash and six of his poems on the centennial of his birth on 19 August 2002. The six poems are "The Turtle," "The Cow," "Crossing The Border," "The Kitten," "The Camel" and "Limerick One." The stamp is also the first stamp in the history of the USPS to include the word "sex," though as a synonym for gender, not as the act. It can be found under the "O" and is part of "The Turtle". The stamp is the 18th in the Literary Arts series.
|
The Old Dog Barks Backwards, 1972 collection |
Some of Nash's verses have almost become proverbial:
The Camel has a single hump,The dromedary two,:''Or else the other way around,
I'm never sure - are you?The Lord in His wisdom made the flyAnd then forgot to tell us whyThe one-L lama, he's a priestThe two-L llama, he's a beastAnd I would bet a silk pajamaThere isn't any three-L lllama:(Wags sometimes retort that the latter is "a big fire in Boston")
I think that I shall never seeA billboard lovely as a tree;Indeed, unless the billboards fallI'll never see a tree at all:(This a parody of the poem
Trees by
Joyce Kilmer)
A panther looks like a leopard,Except that it hasn't been peppered.Should you behold a panther crouch,Prepare to say ouch,Better yet, if called by a panther,Don't anther.''
Philo VanceNeeds a kick in the pance"On Ice-Breaking"
Candy is dandy;But liquor is quickerOnce when interviewed on his arrival in
San Francisco, he said::''May I boil in oil:''And fry in
Crisco:''If I ever call
San Francisco 'Frisco'
*
American Poems: Ogden Nash - Includes a list of over a hundred Ogden Nash poems. Most or all are under copyright and therefore not available online.
*
A Tribute to the Poet selected poems, and a brief bibliography
*
Smoot smites smut Online text of Nash's poem relating how "Senator Smoot, Republican (Ut.)/is planning a ban on smut."
*
Reelyredd's Poetry PagesCustard the Dragon
*
Perspectives on Gossip The theme of gossip in three literary pieces, including a voice reading (mp3) of "I Have It On Good Authority" by Ogden Nash
