Nash, Ogden (1902-1971), was a famous American writer of humorous and satirical poetry. He created a unique poetic style in his light-hearted verses.
Most of Nash’s poems have lines of unequal length. He often stretched sentences over several lines to produce surprising and comical rhymes. In “The Terrible People,” for example, Nash wrote:
Loading the player...People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven’t what they want that they really don’t want it, And I wish I could afford to gather all such people into a gloomy castle on the Danube and hire half a dozen capable Draculas to haunt it.
The Terrible People by Ogden Nash
Nash also used many puns and frequently made clever comparisons of apparently unrelated subjects. He sometimes invented words or misspelled real words to produce a carefully planned effect.
Although Nash wrote in a comic style, many of his poems make a serious point. He made satirical comments about American society and ridiculed what he considered foolish behavior, including his own. Nash described people as bewildered by all the complications of modern life. He regarded humor as the best means of surviving in a difficult world.
The first collection of Nash’s verses, Hard Lines, was published in 1931. His other collections include Many Long Years Ago (1945) and You Can’t Get There From Here (1957). I Wouldn’t Have Missed It (1975) appeared after his death. Frederic Ogden Nash was born on Aug. 19, 1902, in Rye, New York. Many of Nash’s poems were first published in The New Yorker magazine. He died on May 19, 1971.
