SymmyS Awards for Best New Palindromes
As a favor to our friends over at The Palindromist Magazine, here are the results of the SymmyS Awards for Outstanding Palindromic Achievement in 2018.
Recap: Poet and small press publisher Anthony Etherin thoroughly dominated the 8th annual SymmyS Awards, placing in the top three in every category and tieing for the Grand Prize with his palindrome “For Idris Elba:”
Able sir, did nobody fit recognise it ties in? Go, certify—do Bond, Idris Elba!
Etherin took all three spots in the Long Palindrome category, first and second in Poetry, first place in Word Unit palindromes (like the 3 Musketeers’ slogan, One For All and All For One!), second in Short Palindromes, and third in cartoons (with his partner Clara Daneri; together they run Penteract Press in Shropshire, England).
The big win is a good appetizer for a big book release party Etherin and Daneri will host on October 4th at The Swan in Cheltenham, England. Among the four books to be released is “Reflections,” containing palindromes by Etherin, several other SymmyS winners, and top palindromists around the world.
Etherin shared his Grand Prize with Peter Sabra, who won the Short Palindrome category with his “Diet Failure:”
Salad, lo-cal, left a fat fella cold, alas.
Other SymmyS veterans scored as well, including World Palindrome Champion Martin Clear of Australia, runner-up Lori Wike of the United States, and popular author-illustrator Jon Agee. They were joined by newcomer Dylan Smith, who shared his “Origin Story;”
Am I man-made? Damn! Am I, Ma?
Winners were determined by a panel of celebrity judges, including puzzlemaster Will Shortz, award-winning fiction writer Margaret Malone, rapper/MC Paul Barman, Wall Street Journal columnist Ben Zimmer, filmmaker Vince Clemente, palindromist Jeff Grant of New Zealand, and Dutch scholar Johan Jeuring.
2019 SymmyS winners
Grand Prize
Able sir, did nobody fit recognise it ties in? Go, certify—do Bond, Idris Elba!
Salad, lo-cal, left a fat fella cold, alas.
Can we suppose man created God?
There is nothing suggesting we are divine.
Are we suggesting nothing is there?
“God created man”—suppose we can?
Short Palindromes
Salad, lo-cal, left a fat fella cold, alas.
A zig. Now one zag. Gaze now on Giza!
Am I man-made? Damn! Am I, Ma?
Long Palindromes
Demand a hill, at solid nadir…. Damn it! One morn I saw I was in Rome, not in Madrid, and I lost all I had named….
Able sir, did nobody fit recognise it ties in? Go, certify—do Bond, Idris Elba!
Pets: A sad dog or fat cat. Nine dragons (no garden intact). A frog, odd as a step.
Palindromic Poetry
you befilth cay isles.
Seven old, lone vessels I yacht—
lifebuoys tense, port far….
Oh, still aerify!
My ravine defoliated,
dim, its mirage bites….
Sure no bliss of pools to order,
still its red roots loop fossil bone.
Russet, I beg a rim’s timid detail of Eden.
I vary my fire: All its hot, sudden ruby doom.
Radar of tilt
Light raw,
Swarth-gilt
Lit for a dark
Sudden arc
Word Unit Palindromes
Can we suppose man created God?
There is nothing suggesting we are divine.
Are we suggesting nothing is there?
“God created man”—suppose we can?
Will his check go through? He is ill. Is he through? Go check his will!
Trying too hard, getting found out
left those that wrote reports crying
Reports wrote that those left out
found getting hard too trying.
Cartoons
Dirty Palindromes (out of competition)
#Me Too bosses, inept — relay my alert: PENISES! So boot ’em.
Sex in an igloo fort, Nina saw as an intro; fool Gina nixes.
Sir, bedsores are Vera’s eros debris.
No, weepy Melania, grab a bargain ale! *My* pee won!
Odd? I keep *my* gym pee, kiddo.
Word Squares
AVID
DIVA
EDAM
(c) 2019 The Palindromist Magazine
About the Author
msalt Mark Saltveit is a writer, standup comedian, skimboarder and dad based in Middlebury, Vermont. His improv show "Palindrome Fight!" will be at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Aug. 5-29th 2022 at the Kilderkin Pub, 67 Canongate, at 7:30pm each night except Tuesdays.
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