Frederic Ogden Nash: Poems

Other poems

Nash, a baseball fan, wrote a poem titled "Line-Up for Yesterday", an alphabetical poem listing baseball immortals.[18] Published in Sport in January 1949, the poem pays tribute to highly respected baseball players and to his own fandom, in alphabetical order. Lines include:[19]

C is for Cobb, Who grew spikes and not corn, And made all the basemen Wish they weren't born. D is for Dean, The grammatical Diz, When they asked, Who's the tops? Said correctly, I is. E is for Evers, His jaw in advance; Never afraid To Tinker with Chance. F is for Fordham And Frankie and Frisch; I wish he were back With the Giants, I wish.

Nash wrote humorous poems for each movement of the Camille Saint-Saëns orchestral suite The Carnival of the Animals, which are sometimes recited when the work is performed. The original recording of this version was made by Columbia Records in the 1940s, with Noël Coward reciting the poems and Andre Kostelanetz conducting the orchestra.

He wrote a humorous poem about the IRS and income tax titled Song for the Saddest Ides, a reference to March 15, the ides of March, when federal taxes were due at the time. It was later set to music and performed by the IRS Chorale until its composer/conductor's later retirement.

Many of his poems, reflecting the times in which they were written, presented stereotypes of different nationalities. For example, in "Genealogical Reflections" he writes:

No McTavish Was ever lavish

In "The Japanese", published in 1938, Nash presents an allegory for the expansionist policies of the Empire of Japan:

How courteous is the Japanese; He always says, "Excuse it, please." He climbs into his neighbor's garden, And smiles, and says, "I beg your pardon"; He bows and grins a friendly grin, And calls his hungry family in; He grins, and bows a friendly bow; "So sorry, this my garden now."[20]

He published some poems for children, including "The Adventures of Isabel", which begins:

Isabel met an enormous bear, Isabel, Isabel, didn't care; The bear was hungry, the bear was ravenous, The bear's big mouth was cruel and cavernous. The bear said, "Isabel, glad to meet you, How do, Isabel, now I'll eat you!" Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry. Isabel didn't scream or scurry. She washed her hands and she straightened her hair up, Then Isabel quietly ate the bear up.


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