Poetry on the margin

I doubt the poetic figure called acrostic has ever had more exposure in the press than these past few days. Thanks to Arnold Schwarzenegger, of all people, acrostics are now all the rage — kind of.

Google trends shows a surge in the number of Google searches as well as news articles about acrostics in the last week of October:

This sudden interest for the poetic figure coincides with the Governor of California's f-bomb, cleverly hidden in a veto letter addressed to the Members of the California State Assembly, among whom Assemblyman Tom Ammiano. In turn, Ammiano encapsulated a coded message in his response to the governor ("A Message on the Margin"). Is that the beginning of a new mind game for political writers?

The following graph shows that the trend setter and his message are still 6 times "trendier" than the form used to convey it.

The revival of acrostics may well be short lived...