Wry Sense

By Stefan Kanfer

A PENNY SAVED IS IMPOSSIBLE by Ogden Nash Little, Brown; 144 pages; $10.95

He began life as an advertising copywriter,

An occupation that has forced discipline on many a sloppywriter.

But he soon decided that writing a new kind of elliptical verse made wry sense,

So he took out a poetic license. He bent lines and meters, provoking purists to curses,

Because when others broke the rules of prosody they produced vice and Ogden Nash produced verses.

For the Broadway musical One Touch of Venus he wrote lyrics of consummate style

(Book by S.J. Perelman, music by Kurt Weill);

Too much irony to be Byrony.

But he will be remembered for his antic rhyme--

Which, in the words of Archibald MacLeish, "defied the categories and altered the sensibility of his time."

The poet's concerns were not Shakespearean or Keatsish or Byrony;

He wrote about taxes, middle age, children, repairmen--topics that were too prosaic for poetry until they met his fine-wrought irony.

In A Penny Saved Is Impossible the laughs continue, Although the reader may ask himself, "You read this once before, dinyou?"

Yes, he did, but these 60 works range over 40 years; and though some were out of print, all are delectable.

Even the titles are collectible: i.e., "Kindly Unhitch That Star, Buddy," "Pride Goeth Before a Raise,"

"One from One Leaves Two," "A Clean Conscience Never Relaxes " and others beyond praise.

And who can forget those jingling aphorisms: "He who is ridden by a conscience/ Worries about a lot of nonscience;/ He without benefit of scruples/ His fun and income soon quadruples, "etc., but not ad infinitum.

For alas, from Ogden Nash (1902- 1971) there will be no new item,

No fresh verbal raiment with which to costume us;

So let us raise a glass to this opus posthumous

And be glad for the sharp eye and omnipresent wit of the master evidenced by this book again.

We shall not like upon his look again.

--By Stefan Kanfer

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