Ive always liked palindromes – ever since my school geology teacher introduced me to the correct name for marram grass halfway up a mountain in the Lake District on a quest for an interesting lump of rock. I recently discovered that sophisticated palindromes were experimented with in Sanskrit poetry. Complex palindromes appear in the 19th canto of the 8th-century epic poem śiśupāla-vadha by Magha. It delivers the same text if read forwards, backwards, down, up, or diagonally, and the same work contains stanzas in which each line is a palindrome, and stanzas that can be read backwards to give a new stanza.
The poster was designed for the University of Wales BA (Hons) Graphic Design Alumni exhibition organised and curated by Paul Morris to celebrate the sad closure of one of the longest established (42 years) and most successful and popular programmes at the University.
