Here I present some 21st Century Poetry, also known as Palindroetry, a genre defined by yours truly.
If you have written any 21st Century poetry, please e-mail it to me at
saltine@mit.edu.
I’ll review it, and if it meets my criteria I’ll put it up here and credit you.
Criteria are listed at the bottom of the page.
The Palindroems
One rascal I lost in retro flow,
Wolf or tern it, so lilacs are no.
—Joseph Calzaretta
Dogs I meet seem all Lift-Nod.
Don’t fill; lame esteem is God.
—Joseph Calzaretta
My no-dues plan is a Blaine maxim:
“Mix a menial, basinal pseudonym.”
—Joseph Calzaretta
Do go not, Deity Leg. A vase brevet nod
Don’t ever be savagely tied to no God.
—Joseph Calzaretta
We jab a rat on Eyed Idyll, a Romeo who
(oh woe) morally did eye—not Arab—a Jew.
—Joseph Calzaretta
Middle hats. Ivy won. Sag nine poet. A gym:
My gate opening, a snowy vista held dim.
—Joseph Calzaretta
Ossified, it loops secrets your ugly tub stores: Row.
Worse, rots butyl guru... oyster cesspool tide, if is so.
—Joseph Calzaretta
Elite http: else a pup peels a maiden; if error, retrial.
Lair terror refined: “I am asleep,” pupae slept the tile.
—Joseph Calzaretta
Dwelt in a melded dewar of sex, I speeded... am swept aside mood.
Doomed, I sat. Pews made deep-sixes for a wedded leman, it lewd.
—Joseph Calzaretta
To naval kabuki <ahem>, o hot!
To home haiku baklava, not.
—Jennifer Mills
Lair tool, avid desserts
Delirial sex at Kramer’s. Pals, Lana, dial.
Laid; anal slaps. Remark taxes lair, I led
Stressed diva loo trial!
—Sean Lydon
What is a Palindroem?
A Palindroem (a.k.a. a 21st Century Poem) is a rhyming couplet in which the second line is
the mirror-image of the first line. That is, it is a palindromic poem where the first and
second line have an equal number of letters, so the line-break is the middle of the poem.
The only other guideline is that the poems should at least try to make sense… a palindroem
with structure and imagery is better than one without. (So I wouldn’t put “pat nap/pan tap”
on this list, although it technically satisfies the criteria for being a palindroem.) I would
also extend the definition of palindroems to include longer poems which rhyme and every line-break
when read forwards becomes a line-break when read backwards.
So, do you like 21st century poetry? No? Oh, well, there’s no accounting for taste.
But you can still try to write some. Go ahead.