Richard Armour (poet)

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Richard Willard Armour (1906–1989) was an American poet and author who wrote over sixty books.

Armour was born in San Pedro, Los Angeles, California. His father was a druggist, and Armour's autobiographical Drug Store Days recalls his childhood in both San Pedro and Pomona. He attended Pomona College and Harvard University, where he studied with the eminent Shakespearean scholar George Lyman Kittredge and obtained a Ph.D. in English philology. He eventually became Professor of English at Scripps College and the Claremont Graduate School in Claremont, California.

Armour wrote funny poems in a style reminiscent of Ogden Nash. These poems were often featured in newspaper Sunday supplements, a feature called Armour's Armory. Many of Armour's poems have been repeatedly and incorrectly attributed to Nash. Probably Armour's most-quoted poem (usually quoted by people who credit it to Nash) is this quatrain: "Shake and shake / the catsup bottle / first none'll come / and then a lot'll." Another popular quatrain of his, also usually attributed erroneously to Nash, is: "Nothing attracts / the mustard from wieners / as much as the slacks / just back from the cleaners."

Armour also wrote satirical books, such as Twisted Tales from Shakespeare, and his ersatz history of the United States, It All Started With Columbus. These books were typically filled with puns and plays on words, and gave the impression of someone who had not quite been paying attention in class, thus also getting basic facts not quite right, to humorous effect.

Example: "In an attempt to take Baltimore, the British attacked Fort McHenry, which protected the harbor. Bombs were soon bursting in air, rockets were glaring, and all in all it was a moment of great historical interest. During the bombardment, a young lawyer named Francis "Off" Key wrote The Star-Spangled Banner, and when, by the dawn's early light, the British heard it sung, they fled in terror!"

Armour's books are typically written in a style parodying dull academic tomes, with many footnotes (funny in themselves), fake bibliographies, quiz sections and glossaries. This style was pioneered by the British humorists W.C Sellar and R.J Yateman with their parody of British history '1066 and All That' in the 1930s.

[edit] Bibliography

It all Started with Columbus (American history parodied)
It all Started with Eve 1956 (a humorous history of women)
It all Started with Europa August 1955 (European history parodied)
It all Started with Marx (a humorous history of communism)
The Classics Reclassified
Twisted Tales from Shakespeare
English Lit Relit
American Lit Relit
Nights with Armour
Punctured Poems
Our Presidents, Woodbridge Press, California, 1983 ISBN 0-88007-134-6
It All Started with Hippocrates, 1966 (a humorous history of medicine)
The Medical Muse, 1963 (humorous medical poetry)
Going Like Sixty, 1974 (humorous look at aging), ISBN 0-07-002295-5, McGraw-Hill
The Academic Bestiary, 1974 (humorous look at higher learning), ISBN 0-688-02884-5, William Morrow and Company, Inc.
To These Dark Steps (play)
An Armoury of Light Verse
For Partly Proud Parents (light verse)
Golf Bawls (light verse)
Leading with My Left (light verse)
Private Lives (light verse)
The Spouse in the House (light verse)
Yours for the Asking (light verse)
Armour's Almanac
A Diabolical Dictionary of Education
Drug Store Days
Going Around in Academic Circles
Golf is a Four-Letter Word
The Happy Bookers
It All Started with Freshman English
It All Started with Stones and Clubs
My Life with Women
Out of My Mind
A Safari into Satire
A Short History of Sex
Through Darkest Adolescence
Writing Light Verse
Writing Light Verse and Prose Humour
All in Sport
The Strange Dreams of Rover Jones
The Adventures of Egbert the Easter Egg (children's book)
All Sizes and Shapes of Monkeys and Apes (children's book)
Animals on the Ceiling (children's book)
A Dozen Dinosaurs (children's book)
Odd Old Mammals (children's book)
On Your Marks: A Package of Punctuation (children's book)
Sea Full of Whales(children's book)
Who's in Holes? (children's book)
The Year Santa Went Modern (children's book)