Ogden Nash is one of the few American humorous poets. He became very famous during his life for his funny work. His many poems are loved by both children and adults. I hope that after you read this you will like his poetry as much as I did.

   (Frederic) Ogden Nash was born in Rye, New York, on August 19, 1902 . He went to a school in Newport, Rhode Island. Later he attended Harvard University for one year but left because of family financial problems. He decided to get a job. He became a teacher at his old school in Rhode Island, which was called St. George's School, but quit because of stress from his fourteen-year-old students. Ogden Nash then became a salesman, then an adviser, then an editorial staff worker. Then he became a famous poet. He got to be on radio and television. He died on May 19, 1971,in Baltimore, Maryland.

   Ogden Nash's strongest style in his writing was humor, but he had many others. One of his techniques was to write some of his lines of uneven lengths. He also misspelled and made up words to make them rhyme and sound humorous, which was strange since he went to Harvard, a very serious school. He often wrote about animals, which I like. It makes poems more interesting. Here is a poem of his:

The Eel
I don't mind eels
Except as meals.

   Nash didn't use many devises, except a lot of humor, which might not really be a device. He really expressed the way he feels about sushi. It makes me get the "laughies." I don't know exactly why he wrote this, but I am guessing he had just eaten an eel which wasn't very good. I like it because I probably wouldn’t like it either. I'm glad we have the same opinion.

A Watched Example Never Boils

The weather is so very mild
That some would call it warm.
Good gracious, aren't we lucky, child?
Here comes a thunderstorm.

The sky is now indelible ink,
The branches reft asunder;
But you and I we do not shrink;
We love the lovely thunder.

The garden is a raging sea,
The hurricane is snarling;
Oh, happy you and happy me!
Isn't the lightning darling?

Fear not the thunder, little one.
It's weather, simply weather;
It's friendly giants full of fun
Clapping their hands together.

I hope of lightning our supply
Will never be exhausted;
You know its lanterns in the sky
For angels who are losted.

We love the kindly wind and hail,
The jolly thunderbolt,
We watch in glee the fairy trail
Of ampere, watt, and volt.

Oh, than to enjoy a storm like this
There's nothing I would rather,
Don't dive between the blankets, Miss!
Or else leave room for Father.

   I like this poem because it made me visualize the garden, storm, and everything he mentioned. It was like he was talking to me. I could almost even visualize the setting. He used a couple of devices in this poetry. One of them was he definitely used rhyme. This poem used rhythm, which wasn't always true with Ogden Nash's poetry. He used some alliteration, like in "friendly giants full of fun" and "Good gracious". I liked the way he used personification when he wrote "The hurricane is snarling". It makes me hear the sounds of all the wind and rain, which I never could have done without that part. He also wrote "jolly thunderbolt", which was also personification. As you can see from this poem, he was very heavily into metaphors. They were; "The sky is now indelible ink", and "It's friendly giants full of fun". My favorite one was "The garden is a raging sea.

   I've observed that he likes to write about animals, as I said earlier. I like that because it makes the poem more interesting, but the thing I'll remember most is how humorous he was.

Other Poems By Ogden Nash

  • Pretty Halcyon Days
  • The Adventures of Isabel
  • The Termite
  • The Fly
  • Requiem
  • .The Parent
  • Riding on a Railroad Train
  • The Pig
  • The Canary
  • The Porcupine

Researched and written by Kari