Are Poets at a Taste Opera?: an epic poem composed of palindromes

Are Poets at a Taste Opera? by David Benedetti is an innovative and extraordinary long poem composed entirely of palindromes. Unlike anything ever done before, this poem creates a new kind of poetic narrative and imaginative language play within the confines of palindromic symmetry. As palindromes contain the same letters forward and backward, this stylistic limitation seems extreme, but it actually turns out to create previously unheard and unseen sentences and phrases which strike the reader with an amazingly fresh and scintillating humorous irony. The book also contains large amounts of hilarious language play and an astounding array of ambiguous and pointed cultural references, often turned on their heads.

David Benedetti is an American poet living in New Mexico and has strong connections to the poetry scene in San Francisco from the 1960s to the present. He has published a number of books of poetry and prose, as well as innovative computer generated works. He also attained a Ph.D. in American Literature and taught poetry and writing for many years at colleges, high schools, and jails.