“Jabberwocky” was published by Lewis Carroll in 1872 in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, which was a sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Alice has a dialogue with two chess pieces, the White King and Queen, during which she finds a book written in mirror-language. Holding the book to a mirror, she reads one of the book’s verses, “Jabberwocky.” Upon completion she notes that the poem “seems very pretty”, “but it’s rather hard to understand!”
Such a poems seems like the perfect place to begin our journey, explore the world of poetry in performance.