Had the pleasure of meeting Barry at a work retreat last year. Totally brilliant, and so sweet to boot. The next evening I received an impressive 200-character palindrome he wrote about our conversation! Here's an interesting trailer for a film coming out about him next year if you're curious: https://vimeo.com/29300425
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Can you share the palindrome?
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.
FTA:
> “The 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.
Wow. That video was posted 11 years ago