Echo Echo by Marliyn Singer Book Review

Echo Echo: Reverso Poems About Greek Myths by Marliyn Singer
Illustrations by Josée Masse
Publisher: Dial Books
Release Date: February 16, 2016

As someone who writes some of the worst poems known to man, I am complete awe over the work that goes into writing a Reverso poem. How do you even begin to create such a thing? Do you begin with the first line? What happens when you get halfway through and it isn't working? Obviously, with a Greek Myths theme you have more of a starting place and theme than some other forms of poetry. Read top to bottom and then reversed bottom to top, each poem takes on a new meaning with a simple reversal. It's a process that I will never be able to replicate as a writer and so I read them in awe, for they are things of beauty and double-meanings. 

Pandora's poem for example:

“She let loose those evils, 
but 
she didn’t collect them. 
She gets the blame. 
No matter that 
it might have been great Zeus’s game.”