The Poetry of J.R.R. Tolkien

Notes
George Burke Johnston’s essay reprints Tolkien’s poem The Root of the Boot from Songs for the Philologists. The essay is a slightly revised version of that published in The Tolkien Papers.

See pp.10-11.

The booklet was printed and privately circulated by the author - it was not available for sale.

A "specially printed, specially bound copy of the booklet" was sent to Tolkien, who responded on 24 May 1968 with a thank you note and explained that in his youth 'root' was used as 'boot' is now, i.e. slang for 'kick'.

At least one other variant of this booklet has been seen at TolkienLibrary.com, but if this was published, or just a proof copy is unclear.