The "mirror-dyad" as a poetic device.

A way of linking two poems.

With acknowledgement to Vera Rich.

The link below is to a poem of mine, entered in a contest hosted by Vera Rich. The contest was for pairs of poems, each in the same form (or, if in free verse, the second to be with the same lay-out, syllable count, etc), on the same or simliar theme.

Vera gave us the added option of making the pair a "dyad". It relation to poetry, this means that the last word of each line in the first poem should be the same as the last word of each line in the second.

1 - 1
2 - 2
3 - 3
and so on

In the linked example, the two poems are three stanzas each, in sapphic ode form. I had thought to make them a dyad, but then I set myself the task of reversing the end-of-line words thus:

12 - 1
11 - 2
10 - 3
9 - 4
and so on

I coined the phrase "mirror dyad" to describe this device, not because I wanted to "invent a new form" or anything like that (there's a damn sight too much of that going on!), but just because I had to describe it as something.

A few days ago, I wondered whether anyone else had ever done precisely this. I googled and googled, but came up with nothing. I dare say someone has done it before, but never mind.

Maybe that someone was you. If so, feel free to claim the "mirror dyad" device as your own.

http://allpoetry.com/poem/3969303