In Competition No. 2412 you were invited to supply a ‘jabberwocky’ poem beginning ‘’Twas brillig…’and containing new words of your own invention.
By ‘jabberwocky’, which was deliberately lower case, I meant no more than surreal. I wasn’t inviting you to follow Carroll’s monster-slaying scenario, or his metrical scheme, only to match his inventiveness with neologisms in a wacky poem. Many of you over-egged the cake, throwing in so many invented words that I had only a faint idea of what was going on: in ‘Jabberwocky’ it is clear enough, even if you have to guess the meaning of ‘tulgey’ or ‘gimble’. It is almost impossible to write an amusing ‘nonsense poem’ which is pure nonsense, though the 17th-century bishop Richard Corbett had a go. It’s odd that only two of Carroll’s inventions passed into common use — ‘chortle’ and ‘galumph’. I wish ‘frabjous’ had made it. If you want to make an easy fiver, bet someone they can’t complete the line, ‘All mimsy were the…’ Ten to one on they’ll say ‘borogroves’, and they would be wrong.
The prizewinners, printed below, take £30 each, except for Mike Morrison, who gets £35.
’Twas brillig, and the cryall sea
Persiffled to the drinkle beach,
Depositing valdrebs and trones,
A zumerful of each.
Valdrebs look dangerfully farn,
Their markle claws like oberlufts,
While trones are, on the other pord,
Adroke with fliegish tufts.
Alice, quite anxitudinous,
Thought, ‘Should I esculate or plend?’
Behind her sprock the franderbole,
Advising, ‘Leave this grend.
‘Valdrebs and trones are boderfish,
They’ll brale you with syllanthropy.’
‘Not me they won’t,’ Alice reguffed,
‘I’m impulent, you see.’
Mike Morrison
’Twas brillig, and the toney croves
Did smink and mandle in the flunk.
All freeby were the cheriloves,
And the dome maths outblunk.
‘Beware the Gordlescot, my son!
The teeth that bite, with eyes to match,
Trust not the Beebling Sea, and run
From Gloomious Magglethatch.’
And as he stood in presky hush,
The Gordlescot, with sums of cash,
Came saddaming through the noodley bush,
And humphried with a crash.
‘And hast thou slain the Gordlescot?
Come answer me, my screamish lad.’
‘Oh flabburous day, he got away,’
He campbolled, tired and sad.
Brian Murdoch
’Twas brillig and the holly quins
Did myre and mungle in the maul.
All swonzy were the sarrasins
In the rude bath’s tubsprawl.
‘Beware the Ruggerlock, old chap!
The Neath that tackles hard and low!
Beware the Trip, the Overlap,
The dubious Whistleblow!’
And, as in reffish doubt he blinked,
The Ruggerlock, with knees agrime,
Came upper-nunder, almost jinked
Across the rah-rah line!
But just when all seemed numbazup
He hooked it with his twickers-pack!
Oh Triple Crown! Calcutta Cup!
It wasn’t bludge — just knack!
Maurice Smelt
’Twas brillig, and the philippines
Did chad and china in bahrain;
All chile were the grenadines,
And the bahamas outspain.
Beware the netherlands, oman!
The sey that chelles, the bots that wana!
Avoid the liechtenstein bhutan
And shun the french guiana!
He bangladeshed his senegal,
Turkmenistanned his myanmar,
Then bruneid his brazil nepal
And franced his c
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