The Internet Came Up With Some Killer Palindromes in 2012

“Stack cats” is the cutest palindrome. Image: Cheezburger

Everybody loves palindromes, primarily because by knowing what a palindrome is, and by having a clever example or two at our disposal (“Able was I ere I saw Elba”), we perceive ourselves to be just a little bit smarter than everyone else (did you know Napoleon said that, after he was exiled by the British?) even though pretty much everybody knows what palindromes are. 

Anyway, they’re fun. And this year, for the first time ever, we can officially declare a handful of brand new ones “the Internet’s Best Palindromes.” That’s because the Palindromist, the winking magazine dedicated to guess what, has published the results of its first annual SymmyS, an online competition it held to root out the best palindromes of the year. Palindromes are also really, really hard to write, and coming up with one that’s longer than a few syllables, and that actually makes sense, is a feat in and of itself. And these guys are the best of the best.

So without further ado, here are the finest palindromes of 2012 (head over to the Palindromist to read all the winning submissions), starting with the top two “short palindromes”:

Igloo dialogue, by Jon Agee

An igloo costs a lot, Ed!
Amen. One made to last! So cool, Gina!

Untitled, by Martin Clear

-“I made Rihanna hirsute, familiar, frail: I’m a fetus Rihanna hired, am I?” 

And the best “long palindrome”: 

Eric and Traci discuss the morality of watching cross-dressers, by Martin Clear

“Traci, to regard nine men in drag,” Eric (in a play or an ironic art spot) warned, “I am not so bad.”
“I’d never even seen knees … never even did a Boston maiden raw,” tops Traci, “nor in a royal panic. I regard nine men in drag – erotic art.”

We continue with the finest “palindrome poems”: 

Internal Terrorism, by Anne Tenna

Doom? Reward?
A maniac ire made target.
Ah, a mix — a mania, terror on Ohio.
I honor or retain a maxim:
“A hate grated America in a mad, rawer mood.”

And finally, here’s the top “word unit palindrome,” which uses whole words in its palindrome equation instead of just letters:

Untitled, by Aric Maddux

You swallow pills for anxious days and nights,
and days, anxious for pills, swallow you.

And there you go, palindrome lovers. That’s what the p-drome community is up to in 2013. I wish the word itself was a little less complicated, so I could figure out a way to make a palindrome out of this concluding sentence here. Oh well, I’ll ew ho. Or something.