This was on Radio 4 yesterday afternoon, they dedicated the whole of the poetry please! programme to it.
Absolutely fantastic! While I've been a big fan of Lewis Carrol since I was very very small, I've never read or heard this poem before. I've heard of it of course but the experience was something else entirely.
It's really long (think it took an hour to read but might have been less), and manages to be bizarre, funny and entertaining all the way through with loads of tangents around the central story of the hunt. I thought LC's Jabberwocky was my fave poem,- well my fave bizarre surreal kid's/adults poem with made up words concerning the hunt for a fantastical beast - but hey, there's a new kid in town and it's called The Hunting Of The Snark.
Right I'm off to try and find it on the net so's I can print it out and learn the funniest bits by heart and amuse my friends with them. Well I think that glazed look is amusement, anyway.
Zeep out
Lewis Carrol is one of my favourite poets, you can get a very nice hard back version of this poem from Methuen Publishing.
Look out for those Boojums