Anagrammatic poetry explained

Anagrammatic poetry is poetry with the constrained form that either each line or each verse is an anagram of all other lines or verses in the poem.

A poet that specializes in anagrams is an anagrammarian.^[1]

Writing anagrammatic poetry is a form of a constrained writing similar to writing pangrams or long alliterations.

List of anagrammatic poems

• Archive of Literary Anagrams:^[2] Hundreds of long anagrams of poetic and literary subjects by over 50 contributors, including the longest literary anagram ever created.
• Eight Poems in the Manner of OuLiPo, by Kevin McFadden^[3]
• Oh Damn! Must I Refrigerate?:^[4] Anagrammatic poem by Cory Calhoun of the title and first eight lines of Shakespeare's sonnet "The Marriage of True Minds."
• Dianagrams and Monica Lewinsky by Pip Eastop^[5]
• Rishi Talks to Katie:^[6] a dialogue between two high school students: a text's sentences are rearranged, then its words, then its letters
• In the French poem Ulcérations by Georges Perec, every line is an anagram of the title.
• The book Permutation City opens with an anagramatic poem.
• In the poem Washington Crossing the Delaware by David Shulman (1936), all 14 lines are anagrams of the title.
• In the online book, ISOTOPES2 by Daniel Zimmerman, each line of the 14 line poems anagrams a 4 x 4 word square.^[7]
• The Uncertainty of the Poet, by Wendy Cope, is a gentle poem that repeatedly shuffles its words.

See also

• Vocabularyclept poem
• Magnetic poetry

Notes and References

1. "Tea with Kevin McFadden. An Interview by F. David Mencken". Archipelago. Volume 6, number 2. http://www.archipelago.org/vol6-2/recommend.htm
2. Web site: Literary Anagrams from the Archives of the Anagrammy Awards. www.anagrammy.com. 25 April 2023.
3. Web site: Kevin McFadden - Eight Poems in the Manner of OuLiPo.
4. Web site: Internet Anagram Server : The Marriage of True Minds by William Shakespeare (Anagram). wordsmith.org. 25 April 2023.
5. Web site: Links to poem pages. 8 May 2003. 29 February 2024. 8 February 2005. https://web.archive.org/web/20050208195800/http://pyp.f2s.com:80/html/poemlinx.htm. bot: unknown.
6. Web site: Rishi Talks To Danielle. spinelessbooks.com. 25 April 2023.
7. Web site: Isotopes2. 25 April 2023. beardofbees.com. October 2007.