end of line 8, Nash takes his readers through
some interesting terrain. On the way to calming
the hippo, to assuring it that the laughter that it
might hear is from humans laughing with it, not
at it, the poem projects human emotions onto
the animal. Doing so changes the poem from
a setup-and-punchline structure to an intelligent
examination of the human thought process. The
idea that Nash began to write ‘‘The Hippopot-
amus’’ to satisfy an urge to use the wordhippo-
potamiseems more likely than the idea that he
wanted to talk about the hippopotamus’s looks,
given that this poem contains no description of
the animal whatsoever. In truth, his starting
point is no longer relevant any more. The poem
exists now as a contemplation of human vanity
and vanity’s corollary, self-doubt.
Around the middle of the poem, Nash turns
the tables on the readers who started out agreeing
with him that the hippopotamus looks funny.
The poem, which starts out being about the hip-
popotamus, suddenly, almost out of nowhere,
becomes about the human observer. The poet
who laughed at the creature wonders if the crea-
ture might also be looking at people and making
unflattering judgments. This turn of events fol-
lows naturally; the spirit of the poem, its light-
hearted nature, implies that this is the sort of
work where representing the animal’s viewpoint
would not be out of place. At the very least, a
reader cannot be too surprised to see the hippo-
potamus’s perspective in a poem that starts
with the mock-epic call to ‘‘behold’’ it. The tone
of this poem would allow for an actual talking
hippo, if Nash had felt the need to include one.WHAT
DO I READ
NEXT? Nash wrote little about himself, but his let-
ters to Frances Leonard, written during their
courtship and eventual marriage, are col-
lected inLoving Letters from Ogden Nash:
A Family Album(1990), selected and intro-
duced by the couple’s daughter, Linell Nash
Smith.
Of the many poems Nash wrote about
animals—among them ‘‘The Camel,’’ ‘‘The
Pig,’’ and ‘‘The Wapiti’’—his poem ‘‘The
Duck’’ most resembles ‘‘The Hippopota-
mus,’’ with an opening line that is almost
identical. It was first published inThe Bad
Parents’ Garden of Verse(1936) and has since
been reprinted inI Wouldn’t Have Missed It:
Selected Poems of Ogden Nash(1975).
Readers interested in seeing how this poem
looks when translated into Latin can see it,
along with dozens of other Nash poems, in
Ave Ogden! Nash in Latin(1973), a collection
translated by James C. Gleeson and Brian
N. Meyer.
Nash was a friend of the writer Dorothy
Parker, who, though better known for herfiction, produced a substantial body of
poetry. While Parker’s poetic vision is much
darker, she often wrote in an airy style resem-
bling Nash’s. One poem that Parker wrote
that has similar themes to ‘‘The Hippopota-
mus’’ is ‘‘Thought for a Sunshiny Morning.’’
It is included inThe Poetry and Short Stories
of Dorothy Parker(1994).
Nash’s sense of humor has often been com-
pared to that of S. J. Perelman, who was
famous about the same time Nash was for
his articles in theNew Yorkerand other
popular magazines and for writing theatrical
comedies for the likes of the Marx Brothers.
Some of Perelman’s funniest works are
included in his travelogueWestward Ha!
which was originally published in 1948.
One other humor writer often associated
with Nash is Donald Ogden Stewart. Before
earning his fame as playwright and screen-
writer, Stewart wroteA Parody Outline of
History(1921), which, as its name implies, is
a parody ofThe Outline of History, by his
friend H. G. Wells.The Hippopotamus