Ogden Nash Gets Serious: “On a Good Dog” Timothy Sexton College

Ogden Nash is famous for and beloved for always an enjoyable poet to read for his humor. When it comes to writing comic verse, among 20th century American writers there simply is no equal. And that extends even to names which might otherwise top the list such as Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein. Like all funny writers, however, Nash is also capable of digging deep to touch emotions in a way that does not necessarily stimulate the funny bone. “For a Good Dog” is one of the premier examples of Ogden Nash should be considered a great poet, period, not just a great comic poet. For it is through his use of the structure of poetry such as rhyme and meter that he manipulates the emotional tension to keep pathos from unraveling into bathos. Few of the most heralded “serious” poets could rise to the occasion of producing a contemplative meditation on the subject of their own aging by masquerading it as little more than a loving tribute to a pet dog.

The opening of the three stanzas comprising the poem serve to introduce the sing-song rhythm manufactured by an alternating meter of lines with eight or six syllables. This light-hearted vein is further enhanced by the simplest of rhyme schemes: ABABCBCB. Except that the first stanza does not...