Visualizing Ogden Nash's Poems

From Flickr :

A Texas student's reflection...


Hanging at The Bronx Zoo...



Reminder on the workbench...


Xbox commentary...




Poor Mrs. Twist...



A refreshing interpretation of Nash's most quoted poem ...




Shameless commerce in the Netherlands...


A maxim to wear...



They are writing about Llama's on toilet seats in Toronto...



A wedding program reminding the groom to employ silence at strategic intervals...



A Norway artist knew what the caption should be the instant she saw the photo....








All photos © by their respective owners. Click photo for more information.

Ogden Nash's Poem to Dorothy Parker

Ogden Nash's "Candy is..."and Dorothy Parker's "Men seldom make passes..." are occasionaly attributed to the other in error. Perhaps the confusion is understandable given the many similarities between the Gotham based purveyors of witty and provocative verse.

As luminaries in the Manhattan literary world their lives would often intertwine. In one unlikely episode the junior Nash served as the editor of the eminent Ms. Parker's work at the New Yorker for a brief spell in 1931. Although Nash's most urgent mission was often trying to find Parker in New York's speakeasies and entering an 11th hour plea to complete her column before Friday's deadline.

Parker was known to have a rapier wit which she often used to shred sub-par works. However, Parker may have espied something of herself in Nash's early work. In what would be the first of many written and personal exchanges between the two, Parker sent him a rhyme of praise in the fall of 1930. Lamenting that while she used to 'dabble for a living in rhyme', she had since become derailed as a poet by "Racquet club members, players on two pianos, raconteurs and homosectuals." She wished Nash success in life and literature and wanted him to know that she was a "respectful admirer."

In Nash's reply you can sense the joy and awe he must have felt shortly after he opened the envelope with the Swiss postmark. While the twenty eight year old Nash's star was beginning to rise, as his poems were being published with increasing frequency, receiving a personal note from a member of the Algonquin roundtable was a whole other level of recognition.

Nash responded with an enthusiastic poem of his own. He later shared the exchange with his editor. The correspondence, dispensed from Simon & Shuster's 'Inner Sanctum' appeared in newspaper ads promoting the debut of Hard Lines, Nash's first collection. While Parker's letter to Nash has been published several times, I did not know of Nash's reply until Kevin Fitzgerald, President of the Dorothy Parker Society recently shared it with me.

Nash's reply to Parker brims with joy:

"I was more intoxicated by your enconium
Than at a beautiful chord played by a maestro on
an expensive harmonium
I would far rather have your laud
Than half interest in the business of Henry Faud"

Nash's speaking voice reflected his upbringing in 'society'. is phonetic treatment of lord and Ford as 'laud' and 'Faud', was probably close to Nash's actual pronunciation.

'Big Blonde' refers to Parker's highly acclaimed short story of 1929.

The Dorothy Parker Society stages Parkerfest every spring: A spirited celebration of the author's life and works.

Ogden Nash's Advice to the Graduating Class

In the midst of preparation for this weekend's ceremonies, it's a good time to revisit Ogden Nash's address to his granddaughter Nell and her classmates at the Miss Porter's School commencement in 1970.

One can imagine a great deal of anticipation and speculation among the audience as to what the notable poet would say that May afternoon in CT. Would he quote wisdom from his works? Prepare a new poem for the occasion? Or perhaps talk about how he felt after his own graduation from St. Georges?

Nash chose to share something more valuable to the young women off to college in the fall. He advocated for that they employ a sense of humor when addressing the inevitable challenges that lied ahead. He made a vigorous case for humor being "hope's companion in arms."

That Nash should find humor therapeutic and important is not surprising. Here was a man who wrote humor reflexively: As gifts to friends or simply to cheer himself up during an ordeal. As when he penned a verse to vent over his car being burglarized in Boston. Nash used light verse to stun, and suspend in a freeze frame, the abrasive elements of the world so he could lampoon and deflate them.

Here is an excerpt of Nash's graduation address, where he encourages the student's to view humor as their most valuable tool:

"It is not brash, it is not cheap, it is not heartless, Among other things I think humor is a shield, a weapon, a survival kit,

Not only has this brief span of ours been threatened by such perils not of our own making such as fire and flood, Tyrannosaurus Rex, the black death, and hurricanes named after chorus girls, but we have been most ingenious in devising means for destroying each other, a habit we haven't yet learned how to kick. So here we are, several billion of us, crowded into our global concentration camp for the duration, How are we to survive? Solemnity is not the answer, any more than witless and irresponsible frivolity is. I think our best chance lies in humor, which in this case means a wry acceptance of our predicament. We don't have to like it but we can at least recognize its ridiculous aspects, one of which is ourselves."

Not solemnity nor frivolity, but humor tempered with a wry acceptance of our predicament and a recognition that we are often a ridiculous race: A distinctive message for graduation day.

Brother, Can You Spare a Laugh?

Is the question asked on Vanity Fair's April cover about new comedians. Lets hope the new crew can stave off barrel living during this downturn.

They might take heart in knowing that Ogden Nash's rapid career ascent occurred during the Great Depression. Nash's book "Hard Lines" was embraced by a nation in search of smiles during the 30's.

Similarly, in the 1940's overseas G.I.'s were laughing in their foxholes at specially printed collections of Nash's poems. These paperbacks were published by the War Department and shipped along with their canned rations.

Perhaps the Great Recession is the right time for an Ogden Nash renaissance.

The battered housing market is not keeping a real estate developer from tearing down one of Ogden Nash's favorite hangouts. New Hampshire's Portsmouth Herald reports that Rye Harbor Realty is proposing to tear down Saunders restaurant, a frequent summer dining venue of Ogden Nash, and replace it with eight condos.

The local board of adjustment has scheduled the vote for April 8th. The restaurant is expected to remain open for one more summer even if the developer prevails.

Saunders was founded in 1920 by a local fisherman and grew from fish market to lunch counter to a popular full service restaurant.

Moyers and Lithgow on Ogden Nash

"...One of the reasons why I love Nash is, to the extent I write poetry at all, I write daffy doggerel for little children. But Ogden Nash is kind of my patron saint. " Said John Lithgow on a recent episode of Bill Moyers Journal .

Moyers also wonders aloud what it would be like to have Nash and Shakespeare together:

BILL MOYERS: I've often-I've wondered sometimes if Shakespeare might, where ever the great poets gather, be sitting on a corner with Ogden Nash. Comparing their almost mischievous view of life that reflects itself in different...(Lithgow cuts him off )

Clearly Moyers holds Nash in high regard.

While Lithgow reveres Shakespeare, surprisingly he characterizes Nash's work as 'doggerel'. and presumptively places himself on par with Nash as a poet. Me thinks the actor doth presume too much. Lithgow closes the Nash segment with a garrulous interpretation of "No Doctors Today, Thank You."

"They tell me that euphoria is the feeling of feeling wonderful, well,
today, I feel euphorian,
Today I have the agility of a Greek god and the appetite of a Victorian.
Yes, today I may even go forth without my galoshes,
Today, I am a swashbuckler, would anybody like me to buckle any
swashes?
This is my euphorian day,
I will ring welkins and before anybody answers I will run away.
I will tame me a caribou
And bedeck it with marabou.
I will pen me my memoirs.
Ah youth, youth! What euphorian days them was!
I wasn't much of a hand for the boudoirs,
I was generally to be found where the food was.
Does anybody want any flotsam?
I've gotsam.
Does anybody want any jetsam?
I can getsam.
I can play chopsticks on the Wurlitzer,
I can speak Portuguese like a Berlitzer.
I can don or doff my shoes without tying or untying the laces because I
am wearing moccasins,
And I practically know the difference between serums and antitoccasins.
Kind people, don't think me purse-proud, don't set me down as
vainglorious,
I'm just a little euphorious."

Copyright © by Linell Nash Smith and Isabel Nash Eberstadt.

BILL MOYERS: Oh, I love that. Euphorious. A word without meaning, but which is invested with feeling. You get it, even if you don't get it, right?
JOHN LITHGOW: Yeah. He just loved music. He loved to almost caricature language.

You can watch the entire episode and read the transcript here . The poem is read at about the 15 minute mark of the second half of the video.

Timeless Threads of Ogden Nash

Here's an eclectic smörgåsbord of recent Nash news and blog bytes:

"I claim there ain't
Another Saint
As great as Valentine."

The City of Akron used this Nash quip to advise that Judge Stubbs-Williams would be open Saturday, Feb 14 for those wishing to tie the knot. The litigation weary Judge noted that "I don’t mind opening our court on a weekend. It’s so rare we get to deal with anything joyous"

The world's most famous matchmaker received somewhat harsher treatment in 270 when he was beheaded by the Romans.









Another Nashian Valentine was noted by Debby from the Germany-Holland border:

"To My Valentine"

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...
Read the rest here


Moving on to the puzzlesphere, two readers of Rex Parker's NY Times Crossword blog credit their long term memory of Ogden Nash's AXOLOTL for solving the January 30th puzzle. Many cite Nash's works as the best remembered from the classroom. "I've never met an Axolotl, but Harvard has one in a bottle " certainly has a mnemonic quality.

Similarly, AnnaMaria De Mars of Santa Monica remembered that she once created a poetry writing computer program based on Nash's The Hippopotamus. Dr. De Mars has "achieved success in business, sports and academics without ever actually having grown up". Or as Nash observed:

Film student Nimisha Saikia of Ahmedabad shared Nash's 'A Word on Wind' as one of her favorites...

Cows go around saying Moo,
But the wind goes around saying Woo,
Ghosts say Woooo to you too,
And sometimes they say boo to you too,
But everybody has heard the wind but a few people have heard the ghost,
So it is commonly supposed the wind says wooo the most....
Read the rest here

The Sante Fe New Mexican and other pubs noted the recently departed John Updike's connections to Nash as New Yorker contributor and, in his early years, light versifier.

The Ukiah Daily Journal featured a column on popular culture being interwoven into California Supreme Court opinions. It noted that a Nash poem was part of the court's rationale in a 1980 opinion. It doesn't say which poem. Ogden Nash lags Bob Dylan who has been cited for support in 22 bench rulings.

Nash's lyrics are frequently brought to life in Saint-Saens' 'Carnival of the Animals'. But it's a rare to find a detailed review like San Bernardino Symphony Delights Children at Family Concert :

" Especially delightful, Edoardo Ponti's sassy reading of the Ogden Nash verses in Carnival gave spark to the work, and pianists Nancy Bricard and Juliane Song expressed everything from a lion's roar to a hopping kangaroo to a sliding fish... Saint-Saens' "Le Carnaval Des Animaux" (The Carnival of the Animals), although eschewed by the composer during his lifetime, further illuminated serious music and the colors and characteristics of the instruments... In the most familiar of the pieces, "The Swan" in Carnival, principal cello Ana Maria Maldonado delivered a particularly sensuous, poignant picture of a lovely swan gliding silently over the smooth water."

Sounds like it was a beautiful rendering of the verses. 'Carnival' was also performed recently at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York.


"Hope is dope." is the lead quote in suburban Chicago's Daily Herald article on the U.S. fiscal crisis. The writer cites this ten letter Nash poem as one of the English language's shortest. Could there be a published poem less than ten letters long?

In his influential blog JP Rangaswami of the UK included Blogden among good examples of putting your passion on the web.

All of the above threads woven into contemporary life are a testament to the poet's enduring relevance.

Ogden Nash poems copyright © by Linell Nash Smith and Isabel Nash Eberstadt

Interview with Ogden Nash Biographer

A transcript of the 2005 PBS interview with Douglas Parker about Ogden Nash can be found here. Parker's discussion with ThinkTank's Ben Wattenberg provides a nice oral history of the stories behind many of Nash's most famous poems. These include his first published poem, about the self-righteous and hypocritical Senator Smoot.


Invocation
(SMOOT PLANS TARIFF BAN ON IMPROPER BOOKS )

Senator Smoot (Republican, Ut.)

Is planning a ban on smut.

Oh rooti-ti-toot for Smoot of Ut.

And his reverend occiput.

Smite, Smoot, smite for Ut.,

Grit your molars and do your dut.,

Gird up your l__ns,

Smite h_p and th_gh,

We'll all be Kansas

By and by...


...Senator Smoot is an institute

Not to be bribed with pelf;

He guards our homes from erotic tomes

By reading them all himself.

Read the full poem here

Ogden Nash poems copyright © by Linell Nash Smith and Isabel Nash Eberstadt