Biography of Ogden Nash

Ogden Nash was born on August 19, 1902 in Rye, New York and was raised there and in Savannah, Georgia. He received his education from St. George’s School in Rhode Island and he also attended Harvard University. His first published poem "Spring Comes to Murray Hill" was featured in the New Yorker Magazine in 1930. He subsequently joined the staff of the New Yorker Magazine in 1932. Throughout his career he published a total of nineteen books of poetry before his death on May 19, 1971. He manipulates the English language to fit in his poems to male jokes and keep his audience entertained. Nash says he gave up hope of becoming a serious poet and decided that it would be better to be a good bad poet than to be a bad good poet. Ogden Nash employs the use of humor and light hearted verse to talk about relationships, parenting, and life in general.

Relationships were one of Ogden Nash’s most written about subjects. Relationships are a hard subject to write fun poetry about, but Nash makes it work like a charm by using funny generalizations and making them rhyme. He can do this like no other with any voice he feels needed. He uses serious, silly, and sincere tones in his work relating to relationships. In one poem in particular “u of an Ode to Duty” he tells about the confusing ever confusing relationship between men and women, and seems to take no obvious side in the matter. “On some occasions he writes in conventional modes, which means dropping the playful and the lightly satirical to write the pure lyric or to add a didactic note to the prevailing humorous tenor of his verse,” (Louis Hasley,2). Many of his poems about this topic are written with a personal feel, reading them makes you feel as...

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... which he views on a daily basis. “The expression of wisdom, the incongruous sound effects, the comic deflation, all serve to endear the poet-fool to his audience,”(George Crandell,3). Through viewing Nash’s poetry I have learned that there needs to be a voice like his out in society to comment on nonsense, otherwise we would lose touch with our senses of humor.

Works Cited

Crandell, George W. Studies in American Humor, Vol. 7, 1989, pp.94-103.

http://www.galenet.com/servelet/LitRC/ (10/26/1999)

Frankenberg, Lloyd The New York Times Book Review, November 19, 1950, p.4

http://www.galenet.com/servelet/LitRC/ (10/26/1999)

McCord, David The Saturday Review, February 10, 1951, p. 18

http://www.galenet.com/servelet/LitRC/ (10/26/1999)

Hasley, Louis The Arizona Quarterly, Vol.27, 1971, pp. 241-250

http://www.galenet.com/servelet/LitRC/ (10/26/1999)