May 2001
London, Ontario

E is for Emily
With twin orbs that gleam
A full moon so curvaceous
A Norwegian's wet dream

In imitation of his highly regarded poem, "Line-up For Yesterday: An ABC of Baseball Immortals", American humorist poet Ogden Nash (1902-1971) toyed with creating a similar alphabetic poem to memorialize his favourite authors. The writing of the poem was interrupted one night when Nash's friend and one time paramour, Dorothy Parker, ran amuck in his studio, having discovered there was no place for her in the planned opus, "D" having been given over to Richard "Slick Dick" Canfield (1), a now forgotten purveyor of Victorian era bondage pamphlets and "P" to Pelham Grenville Wodehouse ("that fucking billiard-ball Limey ponce", in Parker's words).

Nash contemplated finishing the poem from his hospital bed but instead became involved in an affair with one of his nurses, and despite being unable, on account of his injuries, to consummate the relationship, still wrote a series of poems in remembrance of their brief tryst (Published as Good Intentions, 1942). After World War II the Nash moved on to other projects and, sadly, never returned to the contemplated 'author's poem'.

A Cheslian enthusiast came across the 'Emily' verse in the Nash Papers (now on deposit at University of Labooma). He recognized immediately its reference to the divine Emily Chesley and how it shows that in his younger years Nash had admired more about Emily than her fiction.

--"Scholarship" by Mofkap

Notes:

1)
D is for Dickie
Master please don't bite
One step, two step
Buckle me up tight

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