Ogden Nash
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Candy is dandy,
But Liquor Is Quicker.—"Reflections on Ice-Breaking"
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."
- Analogy Backfire: The poem The Romantic Age, about a lovestruck teenage girl who:
Presses lips and tosses head,
Declares she's not too young to wed.
Informs you pertly you forget
Romeo and Juliet.
Do not argue, do not shout;
Remind her how that one turned out.
- But Liquor Is Quicker: "Reflections on Ice-Breaking" is the Trope Namer.
- Ceiling Banger:
We might love the people upstairs wonderous
If, instead of above us, they lived just underus.
There are no rhymes for orange or silver,
Unless liberties you pilfer.
- Little Did I Know: Don't Guess, Let Me Tell You.
- Long Title: Relative to the poems they're assigned to, an often inescapable consequence of the brevity of his wit; at other times an example of his wit by themselves. Among them "On the Antiquity of Fleas", which is three times as long as the poem itself, and "To A Small Boy Standing On My Shoes While I Am Wearing Them".
- 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,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That's how much I love you....
- Spoiled Brat: The subject of "To A Small Boy Standing On My Shoes While I Am Wearing Them", at least in the eyes of the narrator.
- Spotlight-Stealing Title:
The Self-Effacement of Electra Thorne:
As for egocentricity, good heavens!
What's egocentric about wanting the marquee to read
ELECTRA THORNE
IN
OPHELIA AND HAMLET
WITH
MAURICE EVANS
?
- Stuffy Old Songs About the Buttocks: The Clean Platter
Some singers sing of ladies' eyes
And some of ladies' lips,
Refined ones praise their ladylike ways,
And coarse ones hymn their hips.
- Termite Trouble/Floorboard Failure: The Termite
Some primal termite knocked on wood
Tasted it, and found it good
And that is why your Cousin May
Fell through the parlor floor today.
- 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.
- Wendigo:
The Wendigo, the Wendigo
I saw it just a friend ago
Last night it lurked in Canada
Tonight on your veranda!