Bob McKenty is a poet noted for his mastery of

light verse Light poetry or light verse is poetry that attempts to be humorous. Light poems are usually brief, can be on a frivolous or serious subject, and often feature word play including puns, adventurous rhyme, and heavy alliteration. Typically, light ...

. McKenty, a graduate of the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...

, began writing poems during the long daily commute from his home in

Matawan, New Jersey Matawan is a borough in Monmouth County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. A historic community located near the Raritan Bay in the much larger Raritan Valley region, the borough is a commuter town of New York City within the New York Metropol ...

to work at the Equitable Insurance Company in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. His poetry—always formal and

humor Humour (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humorism, humoral medicine of the ancient Gre ...

ous—has appeared in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', '' Light Quarterly'', ''

The Formalist ''The Formalist: A Journal of Metrical Poetry'' was a literary periodical, founded and edited by William Baer, which was published twice a year from 1990 to the fall/winter issue of 2004. The headquarters of the magazine was in Evansville, Indi ...

'', ''

Reader's Digest ''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wi ...

'', ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', ''

Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. K ...

'', and ''

McCall's ''McCall's'' was a monthly American women's magazine, published by the McCall Corporation, that enjoyed great popularity through much of the 20th century, peaking at a readership of 8.4 million in the early 1960s. It was established as a small-for ...

'', as well as anthologies by

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

and others.

X. J. Kennedy X. J. Kennedy (born Joseph Charles Kennedy on August 21, 1929, in Dover, New Jersey) is an American poet, translator, anthologist, editor, and author of children's literature and textbooks on English literature and poetry. He was long known as ...

has lauded him as "one of the most skillful writers of light verse in America", and in 1999 he won the

Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award The Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award was established in 1994 by '' The Formalist.'' The award, honoring the poet Howard Nemerov (1920–1991), was an open competition for sonnets in English that drew about 3000 entries annually. Essay by three-time Neme ...

, the only time that award has been given for a work of light verse. McKenty was an active member of the Bards' Buffet, a group of light poets (including

Alma Denny Alma Denenholz Kaplan (1906 – 1 March 2003) was an American poet and syndicated columnist who wrote under the pseudonym Alma Denny. Life and career Denny was born Alma Denenholz in Far Rockaway in New York City, the eldest of ten children. Sh ...

Willard R. Espy Willard Richardson Espy (December 11, 1910February 20, 1999) was an American editor, philologist, writer, poet, and local historian. Raised in the seaside village of Oysterville, Washington, Espy later studied at the University of Redlands in Ca ...

, Louis Phillips, and Maureen Cannon) who occasionally dined together in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. In 2005 he published a volume of poetry on

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

, and was making an annual recitation at the

National Baseball Hall of Fame The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-r ...

Bibliography

* Bob McKenty. ''Fallout from the Nuclear Family''. Northwind, 1995. . * Bob McKenty. ''Fair Game: Open Season on Baseball''. Doggerel Daze, 2005. .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McKenty, Bob American humorists Living people Poets from New Jersey 20th-century American poets 21st-century American poets 20th-century births People from Matawan, New Jersey University of Notre Dame alumni Year of birth missing (living people)