Ogden Nash (1902-1974) Odgen Nash attended Harvard, but dropped out after one year. He worked briefly on Wall Street and as schoolteacher, later taking a job with the publishing house Doubleday. Nash's first poems appeared in the New Yorker, but he was also a frequent contributor to Harper's, The Saturday Evening Post, Life and Vogue. Nash was a keen observer of American social life, and frequently mocked religious moralizing and conservative politicians.

Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978) Phyllis McGinley was elected to the National Academy of Arts and Letters in 1955. She was the first writer to win the Pulitzer for her light verse collection, Times Three: Selected Verse from Three Decades with Seventy New Poems. In addition to many other books of poetry, she also wrote essays, children's books and musical review.