Leigh Wolf just sent me a link to this extremely creative YouTube video. The funny thing is that I had seen this a while ago but I didn’t get it. Of course now that Leigh explained it to me, it seems so obvious. Anyway, the narration is crafted in such a way that it reads the same backwards AND forwards. Now this is cool in and of itself, but the kicker is the manner in which the meaning flips when the reading reverses! Very cool.
What is most ironic about my “not getting it till explained” is that many years ago I had gotten bitten by the palindromic poetry bug – and had written a bunch of poems that read the same backwards and forwards. Moreover in these poems I tried hard to create a shift in meaning when you began reading the lines in reverse order. So to not notice this self-same pattern when I saw it in the video seems particularly embarrassing.
Anyway for those who are interested all of my palindromic poetry can be found here. I am including a couple of them below to give you a flavor. The first is a really short one titled I can and the second one tries to generate a distinct switch in meaning when you move backwards through the lines.
i
can
sense
– non –
sense
can
i
?
sit and see you, watch
i want to
go away but also
want you to
understand the consequences, i
agonize, i deliberate, i think, i…
stare-
through a glass darkly, momentarily
me sitting here…
watching,
it’s you
in-sight
but! Ah!
insight
it’s you
watching
me sitting here…
through a glass darkly, momentarily
stare-
agonize, i deliberate, i think, i…
understand the consequences, i
want you to
go away but also
i want to
sit and see you watch
me, as i sit in front of a mirror
0 Comments