Reverse Poetry

Author: Michael Culbertson, R.J. Reynolds High School

R.J. Reynolds places emphasis on arts education as a part of its core curriculum. I and another ArtistCorps member, Moriah, primarily use arts integration with the ESL students, but we also assist with the creative writing course that's instructed by the same teacher every other week. This is a class environment that encourages creativity and transparency. You can be as expressive as you wish in a judgement free zone.

One activity that was introduced was reverse poetry. Similar to palindromes - a word that's spelled the same way forwards and backwards, like "racecar" - these poems can be read forwards and backwards, but with different meanings depending on the direction that it's read. The students were also given the opportunity to be filmed while reading it, and we compiled it into a short film to present to the class only.

I thought I was creative with my writing, but clearly I'm leagues behind the teenagers at Reynolds. Each student provided a deep, thought provoking piece of poetry that went beyond having differing meanings, but causing you to fall into different mind sets. Two that stuck out to me involved feeling hopeless as a young woman in America, and one involving the point of view of someone who doesn't want to live anymore.

The poem about women reads forward as a woman who doesn't believe she will succeed and will only be known for her looks. In reverse, it offers a glimmer of hope that she'll be seen as more than her gender and that she can do anything she sets her mind to.

The other poem is very dark and dreary, spouting self-deprecating comments about the writer and their dwindling will to live. Yet, read in reverse, sounds like it's coming from a friend that is trying to convince him that life is worth living and that life will get better from this moment. 

High school classes typically don't encourage the creativity that we witness in this course, and it's excellent that the kids at Reynolds get opportunities to express themselves in unique and exciting ways that challenge your conceptions of the world around you. I myself can't even begin to attempt to create the reverse poetry that those kids did that day. R.J. Reynolds continues to surprise us with each day of service.