The Oxford Companion to English Verse describes Ogden Nash as a "...writer of sophisticated light verse, renowned for his puns, epigrams, elaborate rhymes, elaborate lack of rhymes, wildly asymmetrical lines, and other verbal fancies." The equally stuffy Benet's Readers Encyclopedia has this take on Nash:"...known for sophisticated whimsy and satire, marked by his adept use of the pun and distorted rhyme, and the inimitable cleverness of his free verse style." Lloyd Frankenberg, editor of Pleasure Dome, "An audible anthology of modern poetry" in which Nash reads five poems, has this to say: "...his technique is the despair of other poets, allowing him to choose any subject that strikes his fancy, develop it at whatever length suits him, and yet keep his audience on the edge of their seats. This is due largely to his rhyme bombs. He lights a fuse on the end of a long line and walks off. You can see it coming, but you can't guess what's going to rhyme with 'tarantulas' until it explodes in your face."

This article takes a look at some of the original LP releases of Ogden Nash reading his poetry.

Nash reads his poetry in a soft Boston accent, with an even tempo and virtually no theatrics. It would be very easy to over accentuate or telegraph the "bombs" but he just smoothly lets them out.

It's tempting to say Nash's poetry is out of date, belonging to another time, a different sensibility. One of Nash's favorite subjects was women, and while his observations might have been funny 40 years ago, today they would definitely raise the ire of the more correct thinking among us. To some, his menagerie of animal poems, collected on Parents Keep Out, stand up best. These poems show his mastery of puns, wordplay and bizarre rhymes.

Nash worked for the New Yorker (where his poems first appeared) during the '30s. He wrote a number of screenplays, and wrote the lyrics for the musical comedy One Touch of Venus.

Ogden Nash died in 1971.