Candy is dandy, |
Ogden Nash (1902-1971) was one of the great writers of American humorous poetry, noted for couplets or other poems that rhyme, but the lines are of different length and irregular meter. He lived in Baltimore most of his life, and included several paeans to it in his work. Also noted are his series of poems set to Camille Saint-Saens' "Carnival Of The Animals".
He was also verified by the Guinness Book Of World Records as having composed the shortest published poem: On the Antiquity of Fleas, which consists of merely "Adam/Had'em."
Tropes in Ogden Nash's work:[]
- Analogy Backfire: The poem The Romantic Age, about a lovestruck teenage girl who:
Presses lips and tosses head, |
- But Liquor Is Quicker: "Reflections on Ice-Breaking" is the Trope Namer.
- Ceiling Banger:
We might love the people upstairs wonderous |
There are no rhymes for orange or silver, |
- Little Did I Know: Don't Guess, Let Me Tell You.
- Missing Floor: A Tale of the Thirteenth Floor.
- Painful Rhyme: Though done deliberately, and often lampshaded by changes in the spelling.
- Romantic Hyperbole:
More than a catbird hates a cat, |
The Self-Effacement of Electra Thorne: |
- Stuffy Old Songs About the Buttocks: The Clean Platter
Some singers sing of ladies' eyes |
- Termite Trouble/Floorboard Failure: The Termite
Some primal termite knocked on wood |
- The So-Called Coward: Custard the Dragon is about a woman named Belinda who lived with a kitten, a mouse, a dog, and a dragon. Counter-intuitively, the kitten, mouse, and dog were all described as being very brave, while the dragon was a coward. However, when a pirate broke into the house and threatened Belinda, the three supposedly 'brave' animals ran and hid, and Custard stood his ground, fought the pirate, and ate him.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: Polterguest, My Polterguest[1].
- Wendigo:
The Wendigo, the Wendigo |