EVERYONE BUT THEE AND ME

Boston: Little, Brown, 1962. Third Printing . Mustard Boards. Very Good/Very Good. 7 3/4" Tall. John Alcorn. It's agreeable work trying to pick a "best of" an Ogden Nash collection, but the problem is there are too many candidates that qualify. Here's just one of them that has the mix of whimsy and excruciating wordplay we qualify as Nashian: "Poets are always in search of the right word, the adjective that is inevitable,/Because an ill-chosen adjective induces levity in the reader, and no poet wishes to be levitable... /When, for instance, Keats refers to "magic" casements he is no poetaster who a mass of trite, meaningless phrases spawns;/He did not slap down the first adjective that came to mind because he had left his thesaurus at Fanny Brawn's./Whoever thinks so, his ignorance of both Keats and casements is absurd;/If Keats speaks of a casement as "opening" then "magic" is the only word .../So anybody who thinks there is a juster mot than "magic," I suggest they join the lowing herd and wind slowly o'er the lea,/And leave casements to Keats and to me." About 90 poems, 171 pages. DJ nipped, sunned, and grimed; boards are clean and sound; stamp of prior owner on rfEP and top edge; text is clean and strong.