Last week marked another elementary school tradition for my youngest son: 'Poem in Your Pocket Day."'The evening before PIYPD, when I sent him off to the book shelf to find his selection, I expected him to bring back some playful verse by Jack Prelusky or Shel Silverstein...in past years he always wanted something silly to share with his class and make the kids on the bus laugh.
But, no!
My 9-year old announced he wanted Lewis Carroll's classic, "Jabberwocky" in his pocket for the day! Knowing that he would be expected to read it aloud, he practiced a dozen times at home. He wanted to make sure he could read the opening stanza with enough style and inflection that his even his friends who'd never heard the poem would be able to understand the made-up words.
And they did!
JABBERWOCKY
By Lewis
Carroll
(from
Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)
`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 frumius 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!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And,
has 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.
