taken from www.deuxlangue.com

The Deux Langue

deux langue, which is French for “two tongue”, refers to the style in which this type of poetry is written. It is an experimental style created by the author. Fundamentally, what makes a poem a deux langue is the ability to read the piece, word for word, forwards and backwards while maintaining a level of intent, flow, and intelligibility. Though the reversal, or shadow, of a given deux langue piece must use the same words in the exact order as the original piece (but in reverse), the way in which lines and stanzas are organized may vary. Here is an example:

Excerpt from "love inverting / inverting love" by David Williamson

original:

affection and desire
suffocate reason and ego dies
love budding

shadow:

budding love dies
ego and reason suffocate desire and affection

Note the exactness of the reversal. No word is altered or displaced. Not even tense changes are permitted. Another characteristic of deux langue poetry is the exclusion of capitalization, punctuation, and contractions. The use of hyphenated words is permitted and encouraged. Within the context of deux langue, no one word is any more important than any other. This is the reason capitalization is not permitted; not even with proper nouns, or words beginning sentences or lines. Those who are inclined to experiment with this style of poetry will find that one word, regardless of its “stature”, can ruin the flow and intelligibility of an entire piece.

There is more to the definition, but you can find that on the site itself.

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