# Ogden Nash **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 14, 2014, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794 "2014-06-14T21:35:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![codgerone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c37758/32.png) [@codgerone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/codgerone)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/1 "2014-06-14T21:35:26Z")
I’m a Brit so American poets were not a large part of the curriculum when I went to school all those years ago. Having said that, his work did get a mention in our English literature course along with notable American authors such as Steinbeck and Hemingway. Talking to a friends university educated daughter recently I was surprised that she had never heard of him. That got me wondering how well his work was known in the US and whether it was taught in school. One of my favourites: Behold the hippopotamus! We laugh at how he looks to us, And yet in moments dank and grim, I wonder how we look to him. Peace, peace, thou hippopotamus! We really look all right to us, As you no doubt delight the eye Of other hippopotami. ---
**Author:** ![CheshireKat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheshirekat/32/1207_2.png) [@CheshireKat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CheshireKat)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/2 "2014-06-14T22:12:22Z")
We were taught about him in school. I always liked his sillier poems - my favorites are: \*The Cow \* The cow is of the bovine ilk; One end is moo, the other, milk. \*The Centipede \* I objurgate the centipede, A bug we do not really need. At sleepy-time he beats a path Straight to the bedroom or the bath. You always wallop where he’s not, Or, if he is, he makes a spot. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/3 "2014-06-14T22:19:24Z")
He’s one of my favorite 20th century American poets, but most people under 40 will prolly never have heard of him. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/4 "2014-06-14T22:28:17Z")
**The Cantaloupe** One cantaloupe is ripe and lush, Another’s green, another’s mush. I’d buy a lot more cantaloupe If I possessed a fluoroscope. **The Termite** Some primal termite knocked on wood And tasted it, and found it good! And that is why your Cousin May Fell through the parlor floor today. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/5 "2014-06-14T22:45:54Z")
One of my favorites: **The Lama** The one-l lama, He’s a priest. The two-l llama, He’s a beast. And I will bet A silk pajama There isn’t any Three-l lllama.\* \*The author’s attention has been called to a type of conflagration known as a three-alarmer. Pooh. Probably his shortest, about my home borough: The Bronx? No Thonx! ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/6 "2014-06-14T23:22:17Z")
I forgot to list my favorite Ogden Nash poem! Okay, this may or may not be my favorite, but it is one that I can always remember and it hasn’t been offered yet: Beneath this slab John Brown is stowed. He watched the ads And not the road. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/7 "2014-06-14T23:25:10Z")
We were taught about Steinbeck and Hemingway (just to use the two that you listed) but I’ve never heard of Ogden Nash. Went to high school in the US in the last ten years. ---
**Author:** ![Skara\_Brae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Skara\_Brae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skara_Brae)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/8 "2014-06-14T23:32:03Z")
\*Oops, turns out this wasn’t actually an Ogden Nash poem. Sorry guys! ---
**Author:** ![CheshireKat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheshirekat/32/1207_2.png) [@CheshireKat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CheshireKat)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/9 "2014-06-14T23:35:57Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Probably his shortest, about my home borough: > > The Bronx? > No Thonx! How about Fleas: Adam Had 'em. ---
**Author:** ![C3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/c3/32/3108_2.png) [@C3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C3)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/10 "2014-06-14T23:39:25Z")
I never learned about Ogden Nash in school, but when I was about 8 or 9, I bought a book of his poetry at a school book fair. He quickly became a favorite. I passed the book down to my 10 year old son and he loves it now, too. (I’m 41.) ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/11 "2014-06-14T23:41:28Z")
> [@Skara\_Brae](#): > > \*Oops, turns out this wasn’t actually an Ogden Nash poem. Sorry guys! Still, you’ve got our curiosity aflame: what was the poem? (I almost made the same mistake with the Purple Cow poem by Gelett Burgess.) I’m…not quite sixty yet…and grew up in a house full of fine literature…and the other kind too. I was reading Ogden Nash from when I was too young to get the jokes. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/12 "2014-06-14T23:41:34Z")
**Love Under the Republicans (Or Democrats)** Come live with me and be my love And we will all the pleasures prove Of a marriage conducted with economy In the Twentieth Century Anno Donomy. We’ll live in a dear little walk-up flat With practically room to swing a cat And a potted cactus to give it hauteur And a bathtub equipped with dark brown water. We’ll eat, without undue discouragement Foods low in cost but high in nouragement And quaff with pleasure, while chatting wittily The peculiar wine of Little Italy. We’ll remind each other it’s smart to be thrifty And buy our clothes for something-fifty. We’ll stand in line on holidays For seats at unpopular matinees, And every Sunday we’ll have a lark And take a walk in Central Park. And of these days not too remote I’ll probably up and cut your throat. ---
**Author:** ![Skara\_Brae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Skara\_Brae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skara_Brae)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/13 "2014-06-14T23:59:36Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Still, you’ve got our curiosity aflame: what was the poem? (I almost made the same mistake with the Purple Cow poem by Gelett Burgess.) > > I’m…not quite sixty yet…and grew up in a house full of fine literature…and the other kind too. I was reading Ogden Nash from when I was too young to get the jokes. It was “The Pelican.” Actually by a guy named [Dixon Merritt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixon_Lanier_Merritt). ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2014, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/14 "2014-06-15T00:23:35Z")
I was growing up in the 60s, when Nash was the most popular poet in America. In late 1968, he wrote a series of poems in **Life Magazine** praising the various members of the Baltimore Colts (he was from Baltimore). When the Jets won the Super Bowl, he grudgingly wrote one in praise of the Jets. My favorite: The Bat Myself I rather like the bat. It’s not a mouse; it’s not a rat. It has no feathers, but has wings. And is quite inaudible when he sings. He tiptoes through the summer air And never lands in ladies hair. A fact of which men spend their lives Attempting to convince their wives. Of course, Nash’s trademark was the uneven line – one short line and another about three times as long with the same rhyme. He’s the only one who could manage that and make it work. For instance: Everybody Tells Me Everything: I find it very difficult to enthuse Over the current news. Just when you think that at least the outlook is so black that it can grow no blacker, it worsens, And that is why I do not like the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2014, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/15 "2014-06-15T00:31:34Z")
I love his text for Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals: \*The kangaroo can jump incredible, He has to jump because he is edible. I could not eat a kangaroo, But many fine Australians do. Those with cookbooks as well as boomerangs, Prefer him in tasty kangaroomeringues. \*_The lion is the king of beasts, And husband of the lioness. Gazelles and things on which he feasts Address him as your highoness. There are those that admire that roar of his, In the African jungles and velds, But, I think that wherever the lion is, I’d rather be somewhere else._ ---
**Author:** ![JWT\_Kottekoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@JWT\_Kottekoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JWT_Kottekoe)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2014, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/16 "2014-06-15T00:36:43Z")
Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2014, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/17 "2014-06-15T00:44:32Z")
A dog is Man’s best friend He has a tail on one end. Up front, he has teeth, And four legs underneath. But I think my favorite is the lllama. And **Snowboarder Bo** , I am (for the nonce) under 40. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2014, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/18 "2014-06-15T00:45:58Z")
> [@CheshireKat](#): > > How about Fleas: > > Adam > Had 'em. Although sometimes attributed to Nash, the original was evidently by Strickland Gilliam in the 1920s, and was entitled [“On the Antiquity of Microbes.”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lines_on_the_Antiquity_of_Microbes) ---
**Author:** ![CheshireKat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheshirekat/32/1207_2.png) [@CheshireKat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CheshireKat)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2014, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/19 "2014-06-15T00:50:06Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Although sometimes attributed to Nash, the original was evidently by Strickland Gilliam in the 1920s, and was entitled [“On the Antiquity of Microbes.”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lines_on_the_Antiquity_of_Microbes) I stand corrected. I’m gonna go eat a stinkbug. :o 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2014, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794/20 "2014-06-15T01:30:23Z")
I love The Turtle, but [The Tale of Custard the Dragon](http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/Custard.html), an epic poem with a sneaky lesson about who’s really brave, is my favorite. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ogden-nash/690794.md?page=2)