‘Twas brilliga hybrid of art work and a five-part poem inspiredby Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky from Alice in Wonderland©Karen Pierce Gonzalez 2025
Jabberwocky’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.
Sensical UnIThis centuries’ old poemstill rings in my ears
when not covered by handsof thosetelling me to sit upand think straight –
IIFor god’s sakethey lament
IIIsuch language isunurbanunbridled
IVunrepentantLewis Carrollhis Alice and me.
VI am notthrough the looking glass clear
but sure-foot-edlygoingdown the rabbit holeof thishead first.
Karen Pierce Gonzalez’s international, award-winning work has appeared in numerous traditional and online publications. Chapbooks include Coyote in the Basket of My Ribs (Kelsay Books), Down River with Li Po (Black Cat Poetry Press), Moon kissed, Earth wrought, Visiondrunk and Sun and Moon Wired Together (Bottlecap Press), and Speak Up / Speak Out (Four Feathers Press Book Ten). She has also published two micro chaps with Origami Poems Project and five poetic librettos with Poetic Librettos/Four Feathers Press. She is a performance poet and several of her short plays have been staged at SF Bay Area fringe festivals.With degrees in creative writing, anthropological linguistics, and folklore, she is a former journalist and folklore columnist who now hosts a quarterly ‘Ekphrastic Folk Art’ blogzine on FolkHeart Press.Her visual artistry is an intuitive conversation with mixed media elements, including tree bark, silk sari threads, acrylics and more. To date 95+ of her images, including seven images, have been published in a range of literary journals/magazines, including The Chestnut Review and Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art. Her assemblage art includes two installations, BirdSong and Women of Babylon.And she gets to do all that in the verdant rural landscape of San Francisco’s North Bay.Linktr.ee/KPGFolkHeartAbout the art: 14x18 inch works of mixed media (paper, acrylics, oil pastels, and glitter)