Retrograde verse

Retrograde verse is "poetry that is metrically and syntactically viable when read both forwards and backwards, word by word".^[1]

It is a difficult verse form. There are examples of retrograde verse in Latin from the classical, late antique and medieval periods.^[2] Medieval examples include:

• Centum concito by Oswald the Younger^[2]
• Terrigene bene nunc laudent by Oswald the Younger^[2]
• Book VI of the Quirinalia of Metellus of Tegernsee^[3]
• Tu tibi displiceas^[2]
• Me merito censo minimam^[2]
• Patribus hec omnibus by John of Garland^[2]
• Lebuine confessorum, a 15th-century sequence from the Lebuïnuskerk, Deventer^[2]

See also

• Reversible poem