[You Can't Get There from Here] is another book by Ogden Nash, a volume that has volume, unlike those which enclose a dozen or half-dozen or even a single poem between boards. Nash has been versifying for nearly three decades, and a long list of sizable books testifies to his industry.
He has mastered a craft and made a body of techniques very much his own. The unexpected rhyme becomes expected, but it never turns out to be exactly predictable, so it still carries a punch. The lines bounce, but not to a metronomic count. Rhyme and rhythm together produce much of Nash's effect, which often proves very neatly satisfying. The rest depends on his subjects. His concerns in this collection remain what they have always been, the near and the customary: money (now it's inflation); advertising; age; children (including grandchildren now); animals; privacy; marriage (and wives' habits); cars.
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