14-year-old's ingenious poem bowls Twitter over

A cleverly constructed poem written by a 14-year-old American student has garnered near-universal acclaim on social media after being uploaded by the author’s brother.

Derek Nichols posted his younger brother’s short poem on Twitter with the accompanying text: "Read this... My 14 year old brother wrote this... Crazyyyy".

And crazy it certainly has been since.

The post has been retweeted over a hundred thousand times and shared by numerous media outlets.

At first reading its somewhat staccato tone makes you wonder what the fuss is all about, only to later reveal its true genius and message of hope.

Nichols’ work bears a strong resemblance to Jonathan Reed’s palindromic poem entitled ‘Lost Generation’.

Both the theme and tone of the poems are similar but as Coco Chanel once said: “Only those with no memory insist on their originality.”

Full text:

Our generation will be known for nothing.

Never will anybody say,

We were the peak of mankind.

That is wrong, the truth is

Our generation is a failure.

Thinking that

We actually succeeded

Is a waste. And we know

Living only for money and power

Is the way to go.

Being loved, respectful and kind

Is a dumb thing to do.

Forgetting about that time,

Will not be easy, but we will try.

Changing our world for the better

Is something we never did.

Giving up

Was how we handled our problems.

Working hard

Was a joke.

We knew that

People thought we couldn't come back

That might be true.

Unless we turn things around

(Read from bottom to top now)