I wrote my first four palindrome poems (Amatory Rounds, Paradise Tossed, Zeno’s Holiday Blues, Oracle) in my mid twenties in a strange fit of creativity over one week in 1996, mainly to relieve the boredom of being unemployed. These have a strong surrealist element which is the hallmark of most palindromic poetry.
The next three were written over about six weeks in 2011, the by-product of an attempt to write a novel (now abandoned) in which the protagonist was a palindromist. Originally I thought the 1996 poems would be adequate for use in the novel, but after coming up with a few fictional palindromic juvenalia I became obsessed once again with the art and wrote Happy Returns, Base Pairs in Flight and Base Pairs Alight.
In Base Pairs in Flight, I think I managed for the first time to write a palindromic poem that successfully masks its palindromicity and stands alone as a (reasonably) satisfying and coherent poem in terms of themes, imagery, tone, and overall intelligibility. This is something I have sought to acheive in all subsequent poems.
After another hiatus I produced Moth Ash (which came third in the 2012 SymmyS) and the metaphysical rhapsody that is Images of Time, followed by the Japanese inspired Haikiah and Basho’s Bed.
Palindromic Sonnet I was written over about six intense, insomnial weeks in 2013. In contrast, A Damsel Auditions for the Mad Dame’s Opera took a day or two.
I have also included a few nonsense poems on this site, one of which, Posteri(ori)ty, contains a couple of palindromic lines.
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Evilly Dine Dragons 