A reversible poem, also called a palindrome poem or a reverso poem, is a poem that can be read both forwards and backwards, with a different meaning in each direction, like this:

Reversible poems, called hui-wen shih poems, were a Classical Chinese artform. The most famous poet using this style was the 4th-century poet Su Hui, who wrote an untitled poem now called "Star Gauge" (Chinese: 璇璣圖; pinyin: xuán jī tú).^[1] This poem contains 841 characters in a square grid that can be read backwards, forwards, and diagonally, with new and sometimes contradictory meanings in each direction.^[2] Reversible poems in Chinese may depend not only on the words themselves, but also on the tone to produce a sense of poetry.^[3] Beginning in the 1920s, punctuation (which is uncommon in Chinese) was sometimes added to clarify Chinese palindromic poems.^[3]

English-speaking poets such as Marilyn Singer and Brian Bilston have also published reversible poems.^[4][5] Reversible poems have also been written in Hebrew.^[6]

Reversible poems are sometimes taught to students as a way of showing differing perspectives within the same words.^[7] In English, omitting punctuation and placing line breaks strategically are useful writing techniques for creating a reversible poem.^[5]