Palindrome
*Palindrome: a
word or phrase the letters of which, when taken in
reverse order, give the same word or phrase, such as
able was I ere I saw Elba (Collins).
Karin Anderson suggests, "if you wish to write a
Palindrome yourself look at the example on
Shadow Poetry,
decide on a theme, and begin with a phrase or small
group of words that read
both ways and build on them gradually. It will take
time, but it is a challenge and is well worth it when
the final result is produced and others say 'that is so
clever'".
**A palindrome is a word,
phrase, number or other sequence of units that can be
read the same way in either direction (the adjustment of
punctuation and spaces between words is generally
permitted). Composing literature in palindromes is an
example of constrained writing. The word "palindrome"
was coined from Greek roots pálin (πάλιν; "again") and
drómos (δρóμος; "way, direction") by English writer Ben
Jonson in the 1600s. The actual Greek phrase to describe
the phenomenon is karkinikê epigrafê (καρκινική επιγραφή;
crab inscription), or simply karkiniêoi (καρκινιήοι;
crabs), alluding to the backward movement of crabs, like
an inscription which can be read backwards.
Palindromes date back at least to 79 AD; they existed in
Hebrew, ancient Sanskrit, Latin and many other
languages (Preminger***).
Wikipedia cites various
types of Palindromes including Characters, Phrases,
Famous Quotations, Names, Words and lines:
Characters:
The most familiar palindromes, in English at least, are
character-by-character: the written characters read the
same backwards as forwards. Some examples of palindromic
words: civic, radar, level, rotator, rotor, kayak,
reviver, racecar, and redder.
Phrases:
Palindromes often consist of a phrase or sentence ("Go
hang a salami I'm a lasagna hog.", "Was it a rat I
saw?", "Step on no pets", "Sit on a potato pan, Otis",
"Lisa Bonet ate no basil", "Satan, oscillate my metallic
sonatas", "I roamed under it as a tired nude Maori", "Yo
banana boy", "Rise to vote sir", or the exclamation "Dammit,
I'm mad!"). Punctuation, capitalization, and spacing are
usually ignored, although some (such as "Rats live on no
evil star") include the spacing.
Famous quotations:
Three famous English palindromes are "Able was I ere I
saw Elba" (which is also palindromic with respect to
spacing), "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!", and "Madam,
I'm Adam".
Names:
Some people have names that are palindromes. Lon Nol
(1913–1985) was Prime Minister of Cambodia. Nisio Isin
is a Japanese novelist and manga writer, whose real name
(西尾 維新, Nishio Ishin) is a palindrome when romanized
using Kunrei-shiki or Nihon-shiki (it is often written
as NisiOisiN to emphasize this). Some changed their name
in order to be a palindrome (one example is actor Robert
Trebor), while others were given a palindromic name at
birth (such as philologist Revilo P. Oliver and
Korean-American Mike Kim). Palindromic names are very
common in Finland. Examples include Emma Lamme, Sanna
Rannas, Anni Linna and Asko Oksa. "Stanley Yelnats" is
the name of a character in "Holes", a 1998 novel and
2006 film.
Words:
Some palindromes use words as units rather than letters.
Examples are "Fall leaves after leaves fall", "You can
cage a swallow, can't you, but you can't swallow a cage,
can you?", "First Ladies rule the State and state the
rule: ladies first" and "Girl, bathing on Bikini, eyeing
boy, sees boy eyeing bikini on bathing girl". The
command "Level, madam, level!", composed only of words
that are themselves palindromes, is both a
character-by-character and a word-by-word palindrome.
Lines:
Still other palindromes take the line as the unit. The
poem Doppelgänger, composed by James A. Lindon, is an
example.
The dialogue "Crab Canon" in Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel,
Escher, Bach is nearly a line-by-line palindrome. The
second half of the dialog consists, with some very minor
changes, of the same lines as the first half, but in
reverse order and spoken by the opposite characters
(i.e., lines spoken by Achilles in the first half are
spoken by the Tortoise in the second, and vice versa).
In the middle is a non-symmetrical line spoken by the
Crab, who enters and spouts some nonsense, apparently
triggering the reversal. The structure is modeled after
the musical form known as crab canon, in particular the
canon a 2 cancrizans of Johann Sebastian Bach's The
Musical Offering.
The Palindrome has also
been used in Classical and contemporary music.
Classical music:
Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 47 in G is nicknamed "the
Palindrome". The third movement, minuet and trio is a
musical palindrome. This clever piece goes forward twice
and backwards twice and arrives back at the same place.
W.A. Mozart's Scherzo-Duetto di Mozart is played by one
violinist as written and the second with the same music
inverted.
The interlude from Alban Berg's opera Lulu is a
palindrome, as are sections and pieces, in arch form, by
many other composers, including James Tenney, and most
famously Béla Bartók. George Crumb also used musical
palindrome to text paint the Federico Garcia Lorca poem
"¿Porque nací?", the first movement of three in his
fourth book of Madrigals. Igor Stravinsky's final
composition, The Owl and the Pussy Cat, is a palindrome.
Contemporary music:
In 1975, the Swedish pop group ABBA had a hit single
titled "SOS", a unique occasion in which a song's title
and the name of its recording artist are both
palindromes.
The title track of the 1992 album entitled UFO Tofu by
Béla Fleck and the Flecktones is said by its composer to
be a musical palindrome.
Shadow Poetry
cites contemporary poetry examples.
Palindrome Published in Sketchbook
Karin
Anderson, AU—Ekphrastic
Palindrome: Never Ending Secret Diary
Karin
Anderson, AU—Ekphrastic
Fibonacci Palindrone: Reflections
Resources
*"Palindrome".
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th
Edition. HarperCollins Publishers. 01 Aug. 2010.
Dictionary.com
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/palindrome
**"Palindrome".
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 01 Aug. 2010.
<en.wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindrome>.
***"PALINDROME".
The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.
Alex Preminger and T.V.F. Brogan, editors. New York:
MJF Books, Princeton University Press, 1993, p. 874.
