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bostonpete | 2 years ago

Can you share the palindrome?

discuss

order

anarbadalov|2 years ago

Sure! Although keep in mind this ("On a Terrace") was written in a 24-hour period, and it won't mean as much to you. Barry's sent me numerous longer and more sophisticated pieces, which he explicitly said i could share with anyone, so i'm including a couple of my favorites below as well. One of these ("Stonewall") he composed on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, the other ("Colin & Jen") is a beautiful little palindrome he wrote for a friend's wedding.

On a Terrace:

No silly din. A set, sated. I saw one

bro: Baltimore has it! Sit. Rapt, I

met. Is Anar B, ran a site (MITP).

Artist? Is a hero! MIT labor be now

aside. Tastes. An idyll is on!

Stonewall:

No, it's a bar. A ban? One position made

fast. It felt, lover, as an age began at – can I

say? – a gem. Ah, Stonewall! Its saga's still

awe, not shame. Gay, as in: Act! An age

began as a revolt, left it safe. Dam? No, it

is open on a bar, a bastion.

Colin & Jen:

Sun I'm in, eh?

We met: a Colin, one Jen.

On.

I locate me when I'm in us.

pxc|2 years ago

FTA:

> β€œThe thing I really want to do is establish palindrome writing as a literary form, to show people you can write palindromes that are beautiful and funny and factual and have real literary merit,” he says.

To me, even just the examples you gave prove that palindromes are essentially poetry in a totally ordinary way. The idea is to express something, intellectually and/or aesthetically, creatively, under constraints based on the structure of the words. Usually it's the syllabic structure, but in the case of palindromes it's the orthographic structure. And it's a really, really hard, singular constraint.