Composing Palindrome Poems

It makes me feel backward!

I’m a big fan of constrained writing, using it frequently in my own work (see the QUILTBAG samples for the most recent examples). But composing my own lengthy palindromes has always seemed as intimidating as becoming an astronaut.

Like maintaining human life in space, constructing multiple-sentence palindromes is uncomfortable, unnatural, just barely possible, and wildly risky. One ill-chosen move can lead to disaster. Of course, there’s one big difference between real-life space travel and palindrome-making: in the latter, when things go wrong, you can simply try again.

Still, I found this art form too intimidating to get into until I read Paul Remley’s “Surrealistic Art Objects.” Remley, like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is the rare double threat: a poet who can both compose amazing poems and criticize the poetic art in ways that are alternative and useful. Here, he discusses the art of the palindrome poem.

“Subjugating and controlling such nonsense,” in Remley’s view, is what makes a palindrome poem a palindrome poem and not just a random assortment of words selected for their overall symmetry. One approach to that subjugation is to make sure your poem includes a number of words grouped around some meaning or subject.

As soon as I read that, I was moved to try it. My first attempt revolved around words from the world of comics, which only served to remind me of the difficulties involved. Many words are all but useless in a palindromic context, like palindromic and context. I didn’t get much further than:

Work, comic. I mock row…

Row of what? “Work comic” made me think of Dilbert, but after what’s happened to that strip, I didn’t want to end up with anything that might feel like a praise of it.

There were other fragments I fiddled around with. Ink seemed like a useful word: it’s found backwards in knit and phrases like back nine. OGN, short for original graphic novel, appears backwards in words like lingo and hang on. But I couldn’t get any of it to stick.

K. Comic I mock isn’t a bad starting point. Reminds me of one of my favorite blogs. Or maybe it is a bad starting point, since I didn’t seem able to build much off it. I don’t have enough experience to know for sure.

I tried another angle with colors. This time I worked from the outward in, finding a lot of short color-themed palindromes like ne’er green and roses, or… and seeing if I could weave them into something larger. I couldn’t use those two, in the end, but a few others came out as something…

Gold logs. Eyed a jade, yes. Pink nip? Redder pink nips. Eyed a jade, yes. Gold log.

I kinda like this one. Feels suggestive in the erotic sense, and also vivid, what with the high percentage of overall “color words.” Still, I’ve got a long way to go to stand next to Remley’s best efforts. In the same piece, he offers this memorable line:

The motif approach is only one way the palindromist can attempt to create poetry. I suggest a more obvious approach: simply have the damn things make sense.

Easier said than done! Still, Remley’s concluding poem, “Raw War,” concerning a Vietnam soldier gone AWOL, seems to do a pretty good job if you allow for heightened, “poetic” language. Note that the title and subtitle are part of the palindrome, so it ends with the mini-palindrome where the title begins…

RAW WAR
(O Sanities' Reverse, It)

“In red omen—a sniping—I bade murder adieu.
Gore, carnage, be off! On!
O, I save lives, live fore’er,
Flee from radical life of red!”

No!
Pigs—unaware poor troop—won' t.
Evade if it reconnoitres.
Edge low, trooper.

O Sanities, reverse it!
In a solo war-evasion a hero tore.
“Hanoi saver AWOL!”
O Sanities, reverse it in a sore, poor, two-leg desertion!

No!
Certified a “vet” now, poor trooper, a wan US GI.
Ponder foe? Fill acid armor?
Feel freer of Evil's evil!

Evasion of foe began.
Race, rogue I dared.
Rum, Ed! A big nip!
Insane modernities reverse it in a so raw war.