Jabberwocky Prompt Contest
This theme is a bit tricky. It’s meant to be a challenge. Take it in the spirit with which it is intended.
“"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The book tells of Alice's adventures within the back-to-front world of a looking glass.
In an early scene in which she first encounters the chess piece characters White King and White Queen, Alice finds a book written in a seemingly unintelligible language. Realising that she is travelling through an inverted world, she recognises that the verse on the pages are written in mirror-writing. She holds a mirror to one of the poems, and reads the reflected verse of "Jabberwocky". She finds the nonsense verse as puzzling as the odd land she has passed into, later revealed as a dreamscape.
"Jabberwocky" is considered one of the greatest nonsense poems written in English. Its playful, whimsical language has given English nonsense words and neologisms such as "galumphing" and "chortle".” - Wikipedia
The poem is as follows:
’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.
I’m not looking for you to concoct a whole new language; I’m just fascinated by nonsense poems. So a few new words may be called for. In structured verse or free verse. It doesn’t have to rhyme to be nonsense.
Wikipedia Defines Nonsense Verse as such:
“Nonsense verse is a form of light, often rhythmical verse, often for children, depicting peculiar characters in amusing and fantastical situations. It is whimsical and humorous in tone and tends to employ fanciful phrases and meaningless made-up words.”
So I’m looking for fantastical. Adult themes and language are okay, though I would prefer no erotic work just because it could get too weird and I am in no mood for that particular kind of weird.
Down to business:
- NO strange CaPs typing
- 50-300 lines should be enough, though if you’re good, I won’t penalize you for going over.
- Punctuation is Important, I can’t read it the way you intended it without punctuation.
- No pre-written poems
- If the meaning of your words aren’t apparent through the context of the piece (for example, what the hell is a “mome rath”?), please provide some definitions in the Author’s Notes.
- Not to be hating on anyone, this hasn’t been a problem, but I don’t want it to be.
- I’ve let this run long because I want to encourage people to try it. It can be very freeing.
it's not for a whole lot of points. it's mostly for the challenge of it.
i can't wait to have another one. i used a Bukowski poem as a prompt in one of them, i'm just collecting the favorites from that contest. they are all good.
Chewy just gave Felix a bath. it was so cute. i was too mesmerized to grab the camera.
oh, doc will be home in less than an hour. cool. we have to do home maintenance stuff today. i have to stay awake. and i have to keep him awake, because he goes to sleep for a nap and i end up going to sleep for the day. and we need to get this stuff done. including fixing the fence outside to keep the dog in and fixing the vertical blinds because one of the things fell down. now i need to duct tape and paperclip it to get it to hang nicely again. i hate vertical blinds, i really do. they are made so cheaply in these apartments. even the mini blinds are cheap. the cats have managed to destroy most of them, and they did no damage to the blinds in the apartment. these blinds just fall apart if you look at them harshly enough.