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Winner of June 2014 Palindrome Contest: First Second* Time Winner! Lori Wike
*Her April win is here
Palindrome:
Parsec? I overfit omen as Elba sung “I err on! Oh, honor reign!” Usable, sane motif revoices rap.
The requirement: A palindrome with Elba plus overfit. (The optional second word: “average” was not needed to win.)
Bio:
Lori Wike is principal bassoonist of the Utah Symphony and is on the faculty of the University of Utah and Westminster College. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music and a Master of Arts degree in Comparative Literature from UC-Irvine.
Statement:
I’m thrilled to be a second-time winner of the palindrome contest and my love of book collecting overrides any guilty feelings I may have about winning twice! Here’s a fun picture of me in the midst of polygonal fracturing from my June escapades. Sadly, I don’t think I can work “polygonal” into a palindrome**.
I’ve been fascinated by palindromes ever since first learning about them as a child in a Martin Gardner book. I started writing palindromes several years ago when my interest in the form was rekindled by reading about the constraint-based techniques of several Oulipo writers. While I love all sorts of wordplay and puzzles, and I occasionally write some word-unit palindromes as well, I find writing the traditional letter-unit palindromes to be the most satisfying challenge, due to the extreme formal constraint of exact letter reversal–which is made even more fun in a contest like this where one has to include specific words in the palindrome. I also enjoy writing palindromes about specific themes (Poe’s Raven, Oedipus Rex, Verdi’s Aida) and I have plans to write a very long palindrome about Proust one of these days.
Mayo: I’d never heard of the Oulipo mathematical poets before. We should try a statistical version here some time.Very impressed that you’re a bassoondromist.
Book Choice:
Dicing with Death: Chance, Risk and Health (Stephen Senn 2003, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Mayo: I did finally send your signed copy of Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge, your April prize. Sorry to be slow (it was the signing that took awhile). Congratulations!
**Fortunately, our July word is not “polygonal”, but the simple: “fanatic” (optional second word: “part”)
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