Portable Dorothy Parker, edited by Brendan Gill and published in 1991, is an extensive collection of Parker's poetry. Parker, like McGinley, was a popular writer, known for her light verse. McGinley is often compared to Parker.

Ogden Nash is also often compared to McGinley. His Selected Poetry of Ogden Nash: 650 Rhymes, Verses, Lyrics and Poems (1995) is a wide collection of his works, which are generally very humorous, a little lighter than McGinley's verses.

In the vein of light verse, Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, which was originally published in 1876, is a classic. This nonsense poem, republished in a paperback edition in 1998, involves a long sea voyage in search of the undefined snark. Critics have claimed that it had political overtones, like much of Carroll's other writings.

McGinley wrote her book Sixpence in Her Shoe in 1964 after her editors suggested...