SOURCE: "Inventory of Nash: 1938," in Saturday Review, June 4, 1938, pp. 6-7.

In the following review, Untermeyer offers criticism of Nash's technique, contending that the rhyme scheme and long, asymmetrical lines obscure serious themes in his poetry.

Ogden Nash has been both over-praised and underrated; his stock has gone up and down and up again; his highs are often confused with his lows. Nevertheless, in a rapidly changing world and a nervously fluctuating market, he has always had more orders than he could fill. Although highly salable, his work is interesting to brows of all altitudes; it is intelligent and always unpredictable. Nash is, therefore, something of a phenomenon as poet and producer, and he merits a more detailed stock-taking than he has received.

There are, first of all, Nash's two most obvious characteristics. Both of them are curiosities in technique: the long, asymmetrical lines, and the elaborately inexact rhymes...