When I was about 12 my father gave me the Penguin collection, Comic and Curious Verse, selected by J. M. Cohen and priced three shillings and sixpence. Being a rather over-heated adolescent I was immediately enchanted by a short verse by Gavin Ewart:
Miss Twye was soaping her breasts in the bath
When she heard behind her a meaning laugh
And to her amazement she discovered
A wicked man in the bathroom cupboard.
Miss Twye – what a wonderful name. She could have been a librarian, or perhaps a superior shop assistant. Quite soon, however, I gave up imagining myself in that cupboard and moved on to another bath-time poem, ‘Samson Agonistes’, in the same collection.
I test my bath before I sit,
And I’m always moved to wonderment
That what chills the finger not a bit
Is so frigid upon the fundament.
This is by Ogden Nash, of course. As well as expressing a profound truth, it did wonders for a boy’s vocabulary. Since then, Nash’s couplets have always been floating about in my mind like notes of old favourite tunes . . .
Oliver Pritchett on the poems of Ogden Nash (Issue 24)
