The Hippopotamus
‘‘The Hippopotamus’’ offers a prime example of
the kind of wit that made Ogden Nash one of
America’s most widely recognized poets through-
out the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. His works
were published in popular magazines, his poems
were quoted widely, and his face was familiar on
television talk shows and game shows. As is the
case with many of the hundreds of poems Nash
produced in his lifetime, this one is a showcase
for the poet’s enthusiasm for wordplay and his
unique view of reality.
The light tone and apparently silly subject
matter of poems like this one have led readers
and critics to dismiss Nash over the decades as
a lightweight writer, a populist whose works
bear as scant literary value as the advertising
slogans that he wrote at the start of his profes-
sional life. Many students of literature, however,
see in a work like ‘‘The Hippopotamus’’ a merger
of form and function that is evident and neces-
sary in the most serious and respectable works of
art. Opinions of Nash’s importance as a literary
poet have always been widely varied, making him
one of the twentieth century’s most compelling
writers to study.
‘‘The Hippopotamus’’ was originally pub-
lished in the 1938 collection I’m a Stranger
Here Myself. It is one of Nash’s most popular
poems and is included in many anthologies and
collections, includingThe Best of Ogden Nash,
published in 2007.84
OGDEN NASH
1938