old dog, new trick poetry edition
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
I was reading my daughter Alice Through the Looking Glass at bedtime when I realized that I've been making a mistake with the opening stanza of the poem "Jabberwocky" this whole time.
That is, what I thought was a verb makes more sense as an adjective. The word in question is the very last, outgrabe.
"Twas brillig, and the slithy tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."
Because the sentence has the adjective mimsy, it doesn't make as much sense for outgrabe to be a verb like gyre and gimble. Those two appear together, and their leading syllables agree. In the second sentence, mimsy and outgrabe don't have agreeing lead syllables but there is no reason to even think that borogroves or outgrabe are creatures capable of actions. So I'm switching outgrabe to an adjective.