Marc Latham thought he’d invented the Folding Mirror poetry form in 2007, but new evidence unearthed today in the planetary poetry pond suggests that a folding mirror style was around for a long time before that, although it was unnamed, and specified that the same words should be used in each half of the poem. So it is slightly different to the form initiated/named by Latham, although it was much closer than Latham had been aware of.
Robert Lee Brewer Provides Expert Poetry Knowledge
Latham always admitted he was a poetry novice when he thought up his first Folding Mirror poem, after being inspired by the haiku form. Some poets with more experience and knowledge told him about the palindrome, but the examples Latham saw just had two blocks of text in two halves, so he thought the Folding Mirror was different.
But this morning he got a newsletter from Robert Lee Brewer with his palindrome (mirror) poem that uses a word in the middle to link the two halves.
Palindromes History on Deviant Art
Latham at first thought that this might have been inspired by his Folding Mirror poems, but when he searched palindrome poetry, he found a site with examples of three types of palindrome poetry from 2004, and it said that they were invented by Sotades in 3rd century BC Greece. One of the styles does use a linking word in the middle.
The Future for Folding Mirror Poetry
The big positive out of today’s revelations is a window to lots of great mirror poetry, and hopefully this will increase interest in the mirror form(s)…and this site…?
mistYmuse 