Tuanortsa or Palindrome

[Tinker]

Explore the Craft of Writing
Light Verse

Tuanortsa is a Palindromic poem. A palindrome reads the same from front to back as from back to front. Palindromes in a single word would be level, radar, eye, civic, rotor etc.

A palindromic poem need not be quite as tricky as turning a word inside out. The lines can simply be mirrored so that the sequence reverses the order and the lines read the same from bottom to top as they do from top to bottom. This was presented to me as a poetry exercise. Why it was called Tuanortsa, astronaut spelled backward, makes no sense to me because the word it isn't a palindrome. Be that as it may, there was only one requirement of the exercise, write a 'poem' that makes sense when read, line by line, from the bottom up as well as from the top down. There should be no fewer than 6 lines but there may be more. Meter and rhyme are at the discretion of the poet.

This Palindrome reverses words
Love

flowing freely
lifting spirits
conquering fears
dissolving boundaries
entwining souls
~ Forever ~
souls entwining
boundaries dissolving
fears conquering
spirits lifting
freely flowing
love
~~ Phyllis Wheeler

This one simply reverses lines
deified 

Tucked deep within a redwood grove
unseen and hidden from the road
a tranquil place to heal a heart
a structure built for love of art
a bi-plane tail juts from the front
the nose of the plane protrudes out back
the entrance harbors a relic's fate
a rail from a bridge, the Golden Gate
a home for statues in marble and brass
haven for canvas, stone, and glass
a private quirky gallery
a secret place that few can see
a private quirky gallery
haven for canvas, stone, and glass.
a home for statues in marble and brass,
a rail from a bridge, the Golden Gate
the entrance harbors a relic's fate
the nose of the plane protrudes out back
a bi-plane tail juts from the front
a structure built for love of art
a tranquil place to heal a heart
unseen and hidden from the road
tucked deep within a redwood grove
                          ~~ Judi Van Gorder

If you are wondering, I have a client whose home is in a redwood forest not far from my home. He has built a private art gallery on his property. His sense of humor was designed into the building when he chopped up an old junked bi-plane and had the nose attached to the building in the back and the tail attached to the front so that it looks like the plane flew through the building and got stuck. He also procured an 8-foot long section of iron railing from the original Golden Gate Bridge when the renovation was being done on the bridge and new railing installed. The relic has become the railing of the entryway of the building. I had just been given a "tour" of this strange and wonderful building when the challenge to write a palindromic poem was presented. I couldn't resist.