Hello Friends,
Today I am attending a Watershed Company reunion of sorts, and because of that, today's poem-a-day can only be "Jabberwocky" — which I used to make my co-workers recite once a year during poetry month.
One of the things I love about "Jabberwocky" is that Carroll forces you to acknowledge the role of the reader, and not just the writer, in constructing the meaning of a poem — any poem. Carroll draws particular attention to the reader's participation by using words for which we as readers must invent our own pronunciations and meanings — but even in other poems, where the words are not made up, we as readers are still applying our own meanings, in a sense creating our own translations, for the words on the page.
So be creative and brave today! I challenge you to read "Jabberwocky" out loud to someone you know. And if you're feeling really brave, try one of the translations of Jabberwocky — into languages ranging from Spanish and Japanese to C++ and Klingon — compiled by Keith Lim.
Enjoy.
Ellen
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought —
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
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