For a week I have been trying to remember the name of one of my best beloved poets, and this afternoon it popped up of like a long lost friend. OGDEN NASH!
Ideas are best expressed in carefully chosen phrases using as few words as practical. Nash was a master of the art. I have always admired Nash's terse verse. Most of his creations made you smile or even laugh out loud.
Once I owned a copy of one of his books of rhymes, but it disappeared somewhere along the line during the past 60 years of my life. Maybe it was among the 27 cartons of books my last husband tired of toting every time we moved; books that he donated to a chief on a Navy ship departing for the South Pacific. My Nash book of poems was a first edition, as were many other books in those luckless boxes. The chief probably sold the books, and they were never read by lonely sailors on duty somewhere in the South Pacific
Copies of most of the husband-donated books are still available at any library, but every once in a while I recall a special book in the collection that was dear to my heart. Nash's book of humorous poems was special to me, and was one of the first books I ever purposely went into a bookstore to buy for my own pleasure. It succeeded very well.
I wish I could remember, and repeat here, some of Nash's poems. Most were very short and to the point. He amazed me with the depth of meaning he could express in a just few words. That is a rare talent. Too many poets, authors, and storytellers pile on detail until your eyes glaze over while you try mentally to dig through the jumble of words for the pith of what the author means, wondering all the time if it will be worth the effort.
Now that I have remembered him, and brought Nash back into my life, I must look for a copy of his special style of poetry at Amazon or Alibris. I'm sure there must be a used copy for sale out there somewhere. I want to laugh again at Ogden Nash's special kind of poetizing.
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To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.
Ogden Nash
Hope that makes ya giggle a bit :>}
The Firefly
The firefly's flame
Is something for which science has no name
I can think of nothing eerier
Than flying around with an unidentified glow on a
person's posteerier.
Ogden Nash
A very strange bird is a pelican
His beak can hold more than his bellycan
He can hold in his beak
Enough food for a week
And I don't see how in the Hellican.
I've never seen a purple cow
I never hope to see one
But I can tell you anyhow
I'd rather see than be one.
Although Nash didn't write either of these, he did write a "response" to the last one:
I've never seen an abominable snowman,
I'm hoping not to see one,
I'm also hoping, if I do,
That it will be a wee one.
www.poemhunter.com/ogden-nash
Paula - I had three years of high school Latin too, from Mrs. Gladys Miller, a wonderful teacher who also taught us ancient history. Because of her I learned to love both subjects. I will absolutely look for Nash in Latin!
Bert - Those are two of my favorite jingles. I think I learned them from my Grandmother. The Nash version about the abominable snowman is new to me.
Wilhelmine - Thanks for the Nash link. But I have to say, I am also enthusiastic about acquiring a book of your poetry too. I love every one I have read. Do you have a link where I can buy it. What is the name of the book?
Which practically conceal its sex.
I think it clever of the turtle
In such a fix, to be so fertile.
One of my favorite Nashisms, but my British friends think it doesn't rhyme.
I've never seen a purple cow
And never hope to see one
But from the milk we're getting now
There certainly must be one.
Carry me back to Old Virginny(?)
And there I'll meet a lot of people from New York...