Ogden Nash: 1902 - 1971
Master of Lighter Verse
Yes, he was the master of it. What you would call the "lighter verse," the carefree and usually short and humorous poetry.
The Nashes were a very prestigious southern family; his great great grandfather was revolutionary governer of North Carolina. His great great great uncle, General Francis Nash, had the town of Nashville, Tennessee named after him.
He spent a year at Harvard (class of '24) and a year as an instructor in St. George's School in Newport, Rhode Island. The outcome I can summarize in a quote of his: "...lost my entire nervous system carving lamb for a table of fourteen-year-olds. Came to New York as a bond salesman and in two years sold one bond - to my godmother. However, I saw a lot of good movies. Next went to work writing cards for Barron Collier. After two years of that I landed in the advertising department of Doubleday Page. That was 1925 and I double-delayed until the beginning of 1931. Then I joined the editorial staff of The New Yorker."
He also achieved success as a lyricist.(One Touch of Venus, book by S.J. Perelman, music by Kurt Weill) His verses were set to classical music for pieces such as Saint-Saëns Carnival of the Animals and Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf.
A quote from the book, A Pocket Book of Ogden Nash: "Delightfully nonsensical, they in fact make the best of sense, accomplishing what only real poetry can - allowing the reader to discover what he didn't know he already knew or felt."
Am I boring you yet? (: Well...his poetry won't bore you! (:
If Fun is Fun, Isn't That Enough?
A Brief Guide to Rhyming, or, How Be the Little Busy
Doth?
The People Upstairs
Our Child Doesn't Know Anything, or, Thank
God!
Listen...
The Tale of Custard the Dragon
