|
Index
Bio Info
Style
Topics
Lit Crit
Poetry
| |
The Style and Form of Ogden Nash
by Ben
Gartner
The poetry of Ogden Nash is wonderfully unique and easy to spot. Nash
poems contain a certain element that seperate them from normal (boring) poetry. You will
like the poetry. It is impossible to resist.
While Ogden Nash does not strictly limit his poetry with strict limitations he does
usually adhere to a few points
 | All poetry is humorous
 | (For example see any Nash poem) |
|
| All poetry rhymes
| (For example see humorous poetry) |
|
| All poems have clever titles
|
Apart from these, there are a few points that Nash does sometimes.
| Lots of short poems (one verse or less)
| The titles of these poems often rival the poem itself in length
|
|
| Lots of medium poems
| Nash has a number of longer poems as well, but none that rival the length of
other (boring) poets).
|
|
| Lack of rhythm
| In Ogden Nash poetry, a line is anywhere from one word to over thirty words in
length. He seems to take a perverse pleasure from lengthening lines just to make use wait
for the rhyme. Most of his long poems seem to defy all attempts at rythm. Reading his
poetry aloud without practice and hard work can often result in cacophony.
|
|
| Rhythm
| Many of Nash's shorter poems and a few of the long ones do follow strict metric
feet. Go figure.
|
|
| Whimsy
| Often after reading a poem by Ogden Nash, you may say to yourself, "What was
the point to that poem?" Well don't bother thinking too hard, because there
probably wasn't one -- beyond making you laugh.
|
|
| Obscure and Sesquipedalian Vocabulary
| Ogden Nash loves to make you reach for your dictionaries as he often includes
obscure names and words.
|
|
| Punchline Humor
| Often a seemingly serious poem on the nature of life may burst into a toronto of
humor upon reading that last key couplet.
|
|
| Lack of Humor, Rhyme and Clever Title
| This doesn't happen very often. |
|
|
