Nash, Ogden, 1902-1971

American poet.

American writer.

American poet Ogden Nash was born in New York and raised along the east coast. After one year at Harvard, he left to earn a living, settling into an advertising job at Doubleday Page. He began writing and publishing poetry, and became one of the most popular poets of his day. His clever, quirky poems inventively break standard rules of form, grammar, and spelling, and his verse manages to be witty, sophisticated, pointed, and hugely entertaining. He had a long association with the New Yorker, and gave frequent lectures and readings both to live audiences and over the radio.

Ogden Nash, American poet.

Poet.

American poet and humorist.

Ogden Nash (1902-1971) was raised in Savannah, Georgia, and other East Coast cities. His father's import-export business made it necessary for the family to move frequently. After completing his secondary education at St. George's School in Newport, Rhode Island, Nash attended Harvard for one year (1920-21). Dropping out of college for financial reasons, Nash took various positions teaching, selling bonds, and writing streetcar advertisements. In 1925, Nash took a position with Doubleday Page Publishers as an editor and a publicist, and published his first children's story, written with Joseph Alger, The Cricket of Carador (1925).

Still working at Doubleday, Nash collaborated with Christopher Morley to publish the comical Born in a Beer Garden or, She Troupes to Conquer: Sunday Ejaculations by Christopher Morley, Cleon Throckmorton, Ogden Nash and Certain of the Hoboken Ads, with a Commentary by Earnest Elmo Calkins (1930). Also in 1930, Nash published his first humorous poem Spring Comes to Murray Hill in The New Yorker.

After the Murray Hill poem, Nash's work began to appear in other periodicals and he was able to publish a collection of verse in 1931 with immense success. Hard Lines (1931) sold out seven printings in its first year and secured Nash in his role as a master of light and whimsical verse.

In 1932 he left Doubleday to work on staff at The New Yorker, but he soon quit the job to devote himself full-time to his writing. He went on to publish more than two dozen volumes of verse, as well as screenplays (none successfully produced), lyrics and scripts for theater, children's stories and various essays. Some of his better known titles include The Bad Parent's Garden of Verse (1936), I'm a Stranger Here Myself (1938), The Face Is Familiar: the Selected Verses of Ogden Nash (1940), Parents Keep Out: Elderly Poems for Young Readers (1951), Custard the Dragon (1959), and Marriage Lines: Notes of a Student Husband (1963). His Broadway play, One Touch of Venus (1943), written with Kurt Weill and S.J. Perelman was a smashing success.

When he wasn't writing poems, Nash took time to appear on various radio game and comedy shows in the 1940s and to write scores for TV shows in the 1950s. He also engaged in extensive lecture tours around the United States and England.

In his personal life, he married Frances Rider Leonard in June of 1931 and had two daughters, Linell Chenault (Mrs. J. Marshall Smith), and Isabel Jackson (Mrs. Frederick Eberstadt). His marriage and his children proved to be a strong influence on his work. He received honorary degrees from New England College (1967), Adelphi (1961), and Franklin and Marshall (1962) and was elected to membership in many societies, including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1965), American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (1943), and the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1950).

Ogden Nash continued to write, publish, tour, and lecture until very close to the end of his life on May 19, 1971.