The Best of Ogden Nash

by Ogden Nash

It's been more than thirty years since the appearance of a collection from America's laureate of light verse. Ogden Nash first gathered together an anthology of thirty years of his published works in 1959. In 1973 his daughters gathered more than four hundred of his poems and called it I Wouldn't Have Missed It , a quote from one of his verses. Now more poems have come to light, so his daughters have once again produced The Best of Ogden Nash , the definitive Nash anthology. The poems display the talent of the man whose verse entranced America from the time of the Great Depression until his death in 1971. The Best of Ogden Nash should delight old fans and introduce new readers to a unique talent.

Genres: Poetry, Humor, Fiction, Classics, Comedy

496 pages, Hardcover

First published November 16, 2007

About the author

Frederic Ogden Nash was an American poet well known for his light verse. At the time of his death in 1971, the New York Times said his "droll verse with its unconventional rhymes made him the country's best-known producer of humorous poetry".

Reviews

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew little about Ogden Nash when this book came within my reach at my local what-not and wild book tables warehouse. I knew only that he wrote light verse in the early part of the 20th Century and that he was considered declasse in the world of poetry. From this I apparently had built some assumptions. First that he was more of a humorist than a poet or a word person. Second that since he didn't reach for profound topics or write "serious" poetry that he was not erudite. I was utterly wrong on both accounts. He is absolutely a word person, a language person.

He has a very keen ear and part of the reason I enjoyed him is because I am faced with how different words in English are in spelling and pronunciation practically every day that I teach. He is playful with language, with rhyme, in a way that frequently highlights how a word would be spelled if we spelled it the way we (or some of us anyway) say it. He also has a pretty wild vocabulary that introduced me to some words I've never seen before (and I'm not talking about ones he's made up or altered for fun).

And he was clearly both very educated, evident all over by poetic lines or titles from predecessors and bending them to his purpose. and of a curious and critical mind. Though the results might make us groan or chuckle (I laughed outright on more than one occasion and had to put the book down), it's hard to deny that it takes a gifted mind to flip both situations and language as he does in many of his poems. There's a flexibility that's easy to admire.

This particular collection was edited by one of his daughters and has been criticized by some as not preening enough and by others as not containing some of his best. The only place where the experience entirely fell flat for me was a section containing verse and songs intended for use in musicals.

As for his focus on the more quotidian aspects of life, I've found that they result in his poetry having an enduring quality. We still stand in lines. We may not have as many cocktail parties as was popular during his time, but discomfort around parties remains, as does annoyances with neighbors and dealing with money and children and spouses and other shoppers. To my surprise, there's quite a bit of social/cultural criticism among his poetry. He often wonders why human beings do things one way instead of another. So his work may not reach for profound heights but it definitely addresses the human condition, both generally and as we experience it on a day to day basis dealing with our minds, our bodies, and other people.

As for his sense of poetic form, end rhyme is his only master. I suspect this is why he is frowned on by the literary establishment. I found it interesting that The Poetry Foundation website had quite a long article about Nash but not a single poem to click on. Since I don't want to make the same mistake. Let me give you some examples of his style.

As an example of playfulness of all kinds, here are the last two lines of the poem, "Two Goes Into Two Once, If You Can Get It There."
I am baffled, I weave between Scylla and Charybdis, between a writ of replevin and a tort;
I shall console myself with the reflection that even in this world, ever perverse and ever shifting, two pints still make one cavort.

Here are the last 4 lines of a dissection of the unpleasantness of picnics called "You Have Got to Be Mr. Pickwick If You Want to Enjoy a Picnic."

There is the inland picnic where you start to tickle and discover that every tickle is a tick.
And the beach picnic where the host didn't realize that the tide would come in so quick.
I always say there is only one kind of picnic where it doesn't matter if you have forgotten the salt and the bottle-opener, and the kids want to go to the bathroom, and the thunder-clouds swell and billow like funeral drapery,
And that is where the meal is cooked in the kitchen and served on the dining room table, which is covered with snowy, un-papery napery.

It's easy to see how this would give those who believe in the tightness of poetic language a nosebleed. However, I would argue that form follows function in some of his poems in that when lines get out of control, they are usually expressing frustration or a feeling of being out of control. Are his lines musical, even as Whitman can be musical? No. His ear is for individual words, not lines. Nash is either sing-song or without music. The ear I mentioned earlier is only for individual words and the natural way that people talk.

A lot of his poetry has a tone of complaint and he clearly has a love of being contrary. On poem is dedicated to countering the popularity of "Happiness Is . . . " statements by providing "Unhappiness Is . . . " statements.

It is when you finally manage to fit both your check and that computer slotted slat into the envelope with the window slit provided by your utility cartel, and it is at best an awkward fit,
And you stamp it and seal it only to find that you have to rip it open again because the wrong side of the slotted slat is facing the slit.

And if you can't relate to that little bit, what about this from "May I Drive You Home, Mrs. Murgatroyd?"

Here's a statement that anybody who feels so inclined to is welcome to make a hearty meal of:
People who possess operator's licenses ought never to ride in a car that anybody else is at the wheel of.
It seems to be their point of view
That you are some kind of fanatic bent on murdering or mutilating them even in the face of the certainty that in so doing you must murder or mutilate yourself too.
They are always jumping and wincing and jamming their feet down on an imaginary brake,
Or making noises as if they had just discovered that their bed was inhabited by a snake,
Or else they start a casual conversation that begins with remarks about the weather and other banalities,
And leads up to a pointed comment on the horrifying number of annual automobile fatalities.
They tell you not only about cars that actually are coming but also cars that might be coming, and they do it so kindly and gently
That it's obvious they consider you deaf and blind as well as rather deficient mently.
And when at last you somehow manage to get to where you've been going to they say thank you in a voice full of plaster of Paris and bitter aloes,
And get down out of the car as if they were getting down off the gallows,
And they walk away with the Is-it-really-over expression of a lot of rescued survivors

I'm glad to say that at the end of 438 pages of non-stop Ogden Nash, I'm not as put out as Mrs. Murgatroyd. I'm glad I took the trip and I found myself wishing that we had an Ogden Nash for our times. Yes we have some brilliant television comedians who deliver humorous, pointed monologues. However, not many of them are likely refer to Scylla and Charybdis or describe clouds that "swell and billow like funeral drapery." In other words, it's not poetry.

However, I can think of few people I would recommend this book to. It is a lot of Nash, for one thing. I wouldn't call him one-dimensional. The poems span lots of situations and subjects. But not everyone has a big enough appetite for light verse, word play and laughing at the little annoyances of life. You have to enjoy amused groaning at his often twisted acrobatics to get his signature end rhyme. You have to have a tolerance for frantic wordiness.

I could easily argue that Nash was an artist, a poet, of his time expressing the experience of life and thus is a descendant of Whitman. I think he has been to thoroughly swept under the rug, disregarded. I hope someone eventually picks him up and does an examination of his place. But it won't be me. What's left for me to decide is whether to keep this book or to pass it on for others to discover and chuckle. I'm having a hard time deciding.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really like Ogden Nash. He writes silly poems with chaotic rhymes. FOR EXAMPLE:

The Germ

A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep within the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.


I did not read all 548 feature poems this time 🤣 but I would read more on another occasion.

[Charlotte]

Ogden Nash is a hoot, and there were plenty of gems here, but it was way too long to hold my attention. I don't love poetry in general (even "light verse" as Nash is categorized), so a little goes a long way. He sure had fun with English, though, and wrote a ton of sweet little poems for his daughters, so good on him.

[LAPL Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a previous review about a poetry book, I wrote:

"Poetry is the most intense and concentrated form of writing, using words, metre, rhyme and format to express thoughts, feelings and ideas that can be fact or fiction. It gets at the marrow of truth and truth-telling using words to create an image, not a picture, of an idea. Poetry slams on the brakes and makes you reconsider what was written. It may very well make you look up words in a dictionary because you do not understand the meaning of the most ordinary words as used in a poem."

I would like to add that it is possible for poetry to be about any subject, from a flea (e.g.,"The Flea" by John Donne) to serious historical events (e.g.,There are numerous poems about numerous wars.). In the hands of an authoritative writer there can be surprises, not only in the use of language, but also the perspective taken.

Quite often the genres of humor and comedy are dismissed as easy to accomplish–they are not. Writing with wit and humor about serious subjects is even more difficult to successfully achieve. The poetry of the American poet Ogden Nash is considered to be "light verse," which can mean a great many things. He was famous for creating unusual rhyming couplets (two sequential lines of poetry that rhyme) that comprise his short and long poems. Nash was irreverent and wise when writing about everyday life, as well as when tackling serious subjects. His poems are refreshing and astonishing, perhaps more so today than when they were written.

This collection was edited by Linell Nash Smith, one of Ogden Nash’s daughters. She selected all the poems in this volume, and provides some background into what it was like growing up with Ogden Nash, a working poet. As a child she remembered “the ubiquitous yellow legal pads … that seemed almost an extension of my father. … Those words on the pads that lay around the house would one day cement our father’s place in the annals of American letters." She also has a good estimation about her father's goals and achievements, "He wrote for Everyman, incisively exposing both the beast and the best in us, evincing all the while an amused yet bemused acceptance of the foibles of the human race.”

In a very short poem, only two lines, a set of couplets, Nash tell us what a child implicitly knows, "A child need not be very clever / To learn that “Later dear” means “Never.” And, the title of the poem is "Grandpa is Ashamed." “Scrooge Rides Again or A Christmas Poem” is a long poem, two and a third pages, all of it written in couplets. It is a confessional poem, where Nash admits to being a modern-day Scrooge, asking time “to turn backward” and, “Let me be a receiver instead of a giver." He wanders through our country’s big cities, listing major expensive department and specialty stores, many do not exist today (Macy’s, Gimbel’s, Bergdorf, Bonwit, Tiffany’s, Marshall Field, Neiman-Marcus, Bullock’s, Magnin’s); and then flits off to other countries, noting their high-end shops (Mikimoto, Gucci, Cucci, Hermès, Balenciaga, Fortnum and Mason, Harrod’s, Liberty), and bemoans his stinginess: “I can name the musical B’s without qualms, / Paying homage to Bach and Beethoven and Brahms, / It’s the charge account B’s that ruin my rest, / Such as Bergdorf and Bonwit and Best.” In "Halloween Hoodlums, Go Home!" Nash states that "no Halloween would be complete without Trick or Treat." However, the entire idea of the holiday has gotten way out of hand and, "This is a system of extortion that has grown even beyond the incredible and preposterous. / It equals the Mafia in ruthlessness and arrogance, it is altogether Cosa Nosterous." Dorothy Parker could have said this, but it was Ogden Nash who did, "Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker." One section, “A Nashional Menagerie” has his numerous poems about domestic and wild animals. These are not gooey or maudlin. While being outdoors and you are beset by flies, consider this two-liner, about "The Fly," "God in his wisdom made the fly / And then forgot to tell us why."

This book has many more short and long poems by Ogden Nash to laugh over; agree or disagree with. You can never judge one of his poems by its title–you will have to read them to find out where the poet has taken you. Here's a small selection of titles to tempt you.

“The Nymph and the Shepherd or She Went That-a-Way”

“Line-Up For Yesterday an ABC of Baseball Immortals”

“Seaside Serenade”

“The Strange Case of the Lovelorn Letter Writer”

“The Filibuster”

“Mini-Jabberwocky”

“The Wrongs of Spring or No All Fools’ Day Like an Old Fools’ Day

Reviewed by Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & Fiction

[Oswego Public Library District]

Ogden Nash is a quirky American poet who is well-known for his light verse. The Best of Ogden Nash is a hefty collection of fun poetry edited by Nash’s daughter, Linell. These are unique and humorous poems that illustrate Nash’s wit and his love for wordplay. The Best of Ogden Nash is a collection that the reader can pick up again and again, and always find something new. -JM

Place a hold on The Best of Ogden Nash.

[D.A. Fellows · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5 stars. A brilliant body of work. Most of it is funny, inducing anything from a wry smile to outright laughter:

“O Kangaroo, 0 Kangaroo,
Be grateful that you're in the zoo,
And not transmuted by a boomerang
To zestful tangy Kangaroo meringue.”

All of it is clever, and some of it is surprisingly sweet, especially one memorable poem about an aging dog, and the sections to or about his family:

“More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That's how much I love you.

I love you more than a duck can swim,
And more than a grapefruit squirts,
I love you more than gin rummy is a bore,
And more than a toothache hurts.

As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,
Or a juggler hates a shove,
As a hostess detests unexpected guests,
That's how much you I love.”

I savoured this over three months while reading other things, and I’ll miss it now that I’m done with it. I made about 150 highlights of favourite lines and verses, which I will return to often, I think.

[Echo · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are a few of Nash's limericks that have always been great favorites of mine. I was expecting a book full of more limericks, and, well .... there are some, but most of these are much longer poems. I love the way he plays with words (though my grasp of French is not solid enough for me to fully appreciate a couple of them). I love his titles as well. He's just a really fun poet to read in general.

[R · Rating 3 out of 5]

Will be of particular interest to those who are studying changes in culture, as a mainstream reference on domestic humor attitudes from the interwar years to the late 50s. This gives you a sense of the kind of 'grounding' humor that was popular during some crazy times. From time to time, goes beyond witty rhymes, and a surprise laugh strikes. Not likely to amuse those seeking an edgy, raw contemporary sensibility. But definitely safe to read outloud at the bingo club.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fondness with which Nash skewers the absurdities of everyday life never fails to charm.

New favorites:
A Lady Thinks She Is Thirty
Line-Up for Yesterday
The Coelacanth
Who’ll Buy My Lingual?
This Is Going to Hurt Just a Little Bit
Don’t Sell America Short

And the old favorites that got me picking up this collection in the first place: For Frances (“geniuses of countless nations”) and, of course, The Octopus.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked up a nice vintage copy of Ogden Nash poems, published by modern library, at my library book sale. Lots of fun little rhymes. Interesting to think that he was as popular as he was, but kind of fun to think that a humorous poet could reach such celebrity status.

[Kerrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you grow up reading Ogden Nash, it's hard to find a more entertaining poet. So to find MORE Ogden Nash is brilliant - this volume is an absolute treasure to share. My children now love him as much as my parents and I.

[Chase Leavell · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were a few I liked, and I loved the inclusion of the animal poems lol but some of them felt like reading a book. I felt a lack of feeling for many. I'm glad he played around with the different types of writing, that shows his creativity but it just lost my attention.

[Laura Berlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Happy to reacquaint myself with the humorous and light verse of Ogden Nash! A wonderful collection.

[Karthik Ramkumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

few books have me chuckling as often as often Nash

[Christine Joelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kept me entertained from cover to cover.

[Vijay Chengappa · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Some pains are physical, and some pains are mental, but the one that's both is dental.'
Ogden Nash was insightful, funny and extremely meme-worthy.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love everything Ogden Nash. Fun, unusual, insightful. This is a book you can pick up at any time and enjoy whimsical look at the world and the inside of an unusual mind.

[Kirsten T]

Inevitably with this many poems, there are going to be ones you don't like, ones that bore, or (if you're like me) go over your head. But overall, delightful. Nash is simply brilliant.

[Joelendil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nashional Book Review

Ogden Nash was a poet

With a distinctive style that if you heard it you'd knowet.

His lines were of any old length and if there was a prevailing rhythm I couldn’t find it,

But he’s so funny I mostly didn’t mind it,

If there wasn’t an exact rhyme for a word like hippopotamus,

He’d be sure to end the next line with some nonsense about a disobedient young pachyderm getting spanked on its hippo bottomus.

His recurring themes of “it’s no fun to be good” and “the good old days were so much better” became a bit annoying.

But most of his poems are good for enjoying.

[Ldgalaxy]

I have read a number of Ogden Nash's poems and verses in the past. I even had a number of them memorized. I purchased this book in July of 2022 as a reference to the majority of his works. This is not a book that I will go through very quickly. I pick it up and read a verse on occasion. I hope to make it through all 548 poems by the end of the year.
08-03-22
As of today, I am on page 30 of 465...
08-14-22
I am on page 36 of 465.

[Mark Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know whether Ogden Nash is my favorite poet; I have a fondness for Robert Frost, and have memorized several of his works, and probably my very favorite, or at least most recited, poem is by Lewis Carroll. But many of the poems I have memorized are his, and most of the earliest ones. I once had a copy of Verses from 1929 On, and my sons were all subjected to my readings from that book from before they were born (the eldest, at least, has expressed his appreciation for these readings, or at least the later ones). Thus when this book arrived on my birthday last year, I was very pleased; and I am still pleased, although I have some disappointments.

Any book that attempts to provide the "best" of an author is going to be subjective, as fans will frequently disagree on what the best examples are. That was something of a problem here. Edited by his daughter Linell (her sister Isabel having died before the process got far enough to include her name in the credit), it contains many poems which are clearly of personal value to her as his daughter. Indeed, that is one of the books strengths--there are previously unpublished pieces here that were originally tossed off as post cards and letters to family, or left lying around the house. On the other hand, the fact that several of my favorites are absent was striking. There is no The Elephant and the Telephone, a classic short that I would have rated as Nash at his best. There are several of his Strange Case poems, but only one of the three I remember, and that not my favorite--The Strange Case of the Dead Divorcee has long been remembered and recalled here, with its concept of a "Juleper in the Manger" repeated as a warning to girlfriends of sons who (the girls) suggest that they don't need their own serving of something because they can share the boy's, and The Strange Case of the Blackmailing Dove is the third one in my memory (after The Strange Case of the Ambitious Caddy, which is included). It is disappointing not to have copies of these poems--when somehow your two favorites fail to make the cut of "best", you have to wonder what the editor was thinking.

On the other hand, many of the greats are here--The Germ, The Octopus, The Panther, The Hippopotamus, Very Like a Whale, I'm Sure She Said Six-Thirty, The Lama, plus some good ones that I had forgotten (this is my second time through this book), such as A Strange Casement of the Poetic Apothecary. You could do worse in a collection, and while I still prefer the book I lost (those poems were arranged chronologically by Nash himself, these primarily topically), this is a fair replacement for it. I'm sure I will read it again.

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Candy is dandy

But Liquor is quicker

The immortal poems of Ogden Nash have been collected and republished in a very nice edition of The Best of Ogden Nash. Over 500 of the poet’s gems are on display for a new generation to enjoy.

Nash was a master of light verse that captured many fans back when poetry was enjoying a rebirth (sadly it has since died again). The collection includes many of his delightful couplets and long form verse. A must for all Nash fans and a sturdy primer for what poetry can be. It is a shame that far too many of us neglect poetry…Anyway, Ogden Nash is a fine start to begin with poetry again…

[Edward Rathke · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many puns! Punishingly punny.

if you're looking for 500 pages of humorous poetry, this is definitely a good place to look, especially if you love puns, which I do.

Even so, I wouldn't recommend d trying to read this quickly. there are only so many puns a brain can handle in a day. But this is fun and funny and mostly just silly, but oddly insightful. or not oddly, but surprisingly.

I dig it but I also didn't love it.

[Patricia Bowne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Ogden Nash, but this book is just too much of a good thing. I quickly bogged down; it didn't help that the good poems I found, I already knew well enough to recite. I quickly got the feeling that I already knew all the Ogden Nash poems that were worth knowing, and the book has sat neglected on my shelf ever since.
For people who didn't learn his poems in their youth, this might be a treasure -- or it might present too much at one time for them to appreciate.

[Jared · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ogden Nash's wit and wordplay is exactly what one needs for a light-hearted read with a the sweet aftertaste of deep thinking. His deceptively simple poetry probes into themes that we all perceive everyday yet never truly notice.

[David Saxon · Rating 5 out of 5]

My dad quoted Ogden Nash poems throughout my childhood, so it was delightful to find an anthology of over 400 of his poems. Great for browsing or, as I did, reading straight through. Incredibly witty, insightful, and humorous.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many of the pop culture references in Nash's poems fall flat with (or over the head of) this millennial, but, in general, I love his wit and style. The organization of this collection is excellent; the themes are logical, but not so much so that reading becomes monotonous.

[Bird · Rating 5 out of 5]

A cow is of the bovine ilk
One end is moo, the other milk

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Ogden Nash. He is so quirky. Candy is Dandy but Liquor is Quicker!

[Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone should read a good dose of nonsense and there's no one better at it.