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Ambigram poem

Form
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A visual poem constructed to be legible and meaningful both upright and inverted, often exploiting symmetry or reversible typography.

Detailed Definition
An ambigram poem is a visual-verbal hybrid that reads meaningfully in more than one orientation—such as upside down or mirrored—combining poetic content with typographical symmetry; it merges literary and graphic art, challenging perception and emphasizing the materiality of language.
Example
Example in poetry:
Ambigram poem in John Langdon’s visual “Ambigram” designs; ambigram poem by Scott Kim reads same upside-down; contemporary ambigram poetry in typewriter art by Paula Claire; ambigram poems exploit rotational or mirror symmetry in letterforms
Additional Notes
Poem designed to read same or differently when rotated/reflected. Visual concrete poetry. Related to palindrome and pattern poetry. Experimental form exploring visual-textual interplay. See Guillaume Apollinaire's calligrams.
Also Known As
Reversible poem Mirror-word poem Rotational poem
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