Tuesday 25 August 2009

Mirror Poetry


What is a mirror poem? AKA a Palindrome poem or I have seen them called Specular too.
Basically it's a poem that reads the same lines forwards as backwards.

E.g.

LineA
LineB
LineC
LineD
LineD
LineC
LineB
LineA

Sometimes LineD is not repeated.

From (a very small amount of) research, they seem to have started in 1967. Doppelganger by James A Lindon which becomes all creepy when the lines read backwards.

In more recent times, the English poet Julia Copus has popularised it. Read The Backseat of My Mother's Car from her collection The Shuttered Eye (Bloodaxe 1995). In fact in an interview she does say she apparently invented it, though James A Lindon may disagree.

I (probably) have a mirror poem in the autumn/winter issue of Orbis. Click here for some backcopies online.

2 comments:

Colm Keegan said...

Cool post!

Niamh Griffin said...

Congrats on having your poem in!