Ogden Nash, the man who gave us

"Candy
Is dandy
But liquor
Is quicker"

said he would rather be a "good bad poet" than a "bad good poet." For decades, he turned an amused, uncynical eye on the American experience and won an enormous audience for poems like "The Turtle":

The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks
Which practically conceal its sex.
I think it clever of the turtle
In such a fix to be so fertile.

Douglas Parker '56, LLB '58, author of "Ogden Nash: The Life and Work of America's Laureate of Light Verse," entertained Nash fans in Kroch Library Nov. 11 with reflections on the poet's life and art.

Born in Rye, N.Y., in 1902, Nash wrote his first poem at age 10. After graduating from a Newport prep school, he completed his freshman year at Harvard before dropping out due to his family's finances. Thus began stints as a teacher, bond seller and writer of ads for streetcars.

By the mid-1930s Nash was selling his poems to the New Yorker, Saturday Evening Post and other magazines and newspapers. Several editions of his collected poems became best-selling books. He once wrote nearly 100 verses on the spot for buyers at a book signing in Oklahoma City.

Nash also lectured widely, wrote for the movies and TV and composed greeting cards for Hallmark. Turning down an offer to write ad copy for a laxative, Nash told a friend, "If they want anything on pellagra, leprosy or syphilis I'm their man, but I'm afraid constipation is eliminated, if that isn't a contradiction in terms."

"Celery"
Celery, raw
Develops the jaw,
But celery, stewed,
Is more quietly chewed

"I liked him," said Parker, who wrote the book with authorization from Nash's family. Parker did not set out to unearth scandal, and in his research Nash proved to be a beloved and respected figure. "He had a crazed affection for the language," Parker said. "Nash appealed to the non-poetry reader, but W. H. Auden and Marianne Moore also admired him. His work was probably more widely known than any living poet of the time." Much of it is still in print.

Nash often took his life and family, including his wife and two daughters, as his subjects. His love of drink caused tension early in his marriage, which was largely happy and lasted four decades until his death in 1971, perhaps because he took his own advice.

"A Word to Husbands":
To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you're wrong, admit it;
Whenever you're right, shut up.