Celebrating Nash's Legacy in North Hampton

Ogden Nash was recently featured in two special events in New Hampshire.

The tribute began with an early evening tour of Nash's former seaside estate, courtesy of owners Bob & Sherry Lauter. The house is beautifully situated on a rise overlooking the Atlantic and the rock dotted beach. According to his grandaughter Frances, Nash swam there daily from Memorial Day to Labor Day, irrespective of the cold temperatures.

As we walked through the house Bob related the Nash lore he's received from friends and Nash's family since they purchased the home a few years ago. Much of the character and features of the 1870's of mansard roofed house has been preserved. Although it's far from a stuffy Victorian. The front rooms have fantastic views. The second floor has 11 foot ceilings and wide plank floors. While the red Formica counter tops are gone, the original kitchen cabinets are still there and one can easily envision Nash looking for more barbecue sauce or a midnight snack.

The next event was " Home is Heaven: 32 Poems by Ogden Nash...an original staging of Nash poems which celebrate his family and their summers by the seashore", staged by M. Marguerite Mathews and Gregory Gathers of the Pontine Theatre Company.

The production animating Nash's poems about family life at the seashore made for superb synergy after the tour of his home. The day's events were the work of Susan Grant, Director of North Hampton's library. Susan and her staff and volunteers did an amazing job bringing everything together.

The Pontine players were brilliant in 'duet' form - reciting 'Apartment to Sublet'. 'Custard' and 'Tin Wedding Whistle' in the most endearing ways that brought out nuances of the poem that go unnoticed when reading it in a solo voice.

The play was received warmly by the audience. Many stayed long afterwards to chat with Marguerite and Greg and listen to their stories of producing the play and staging it all over NH. 'Home is Heaven' has been performed previously at Pontine Theatre - here is a detailed review by WireNH.

The evening was also the start of an effort to gather more Ogden Nash anecdotes from his North Hampton friends to include in a touring exhibit of his works. If you have any Nash stories to share, please send them to Susan Grant or post them here and I'll pass them on.

Ogden Nash Day in Little Boar's Head, NH

On August 20th the town of North Hampton, NH is celebrating the anniversary of the poet's birth with two special events.

The Pontine Theatre group will stage a production of "Home is Heaven: POEMS BY OGDEN NASH" at 7 p.m. at North Hampton School, 201 Atlantic Ave. Pontine's co-artistic directors Marguerite Mathews and Greg Gathers will bring Nash's poems on family and summer to life with toy theater figures and puppets.

Prior to the production here will be a tour of Ogden Nash's former seaside home from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., compliments of Bob and Sherry Lauter, the current owners. For more information contact the North Hampton Public Library at 603-964-6326.

Nash was born on August 19, 1902.

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 in public restrooms 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.