Bergerson's first volume of poetry,
The Spirit of Adolescence, was published in 1950, and earned him the state's nomination as
Oregon Poet Laureate in 1957. However, he declined the nomination for political reasons, and the position instead went to
Ethel R. Fuller. By 1961, Bergerson's interests had shifted to wordplay and
constrained writing. He became fascinated with palindromes and set out to write a coherent, full-length palindromic poem. The result, the 1034-letter "Edna Waterfall", was for some time listed by the
Guinness Book of World Records as the longest palindrome in English. In 1969, Bergerson became editor of
Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics, though stepped down a year later when
Greenwood Periodicals dropped the publication. However, he continued to contribute material to
Word Ways for several decades, including memorable articles on palindromes,
anagrams,
panalphabetic windows,
pangrammatic windows, self-referencing
acrostics, and
vocabularyclept poetry. He also published games and puzzles in ''
Reader's Digest'' and other magazines. His 1973 book
Palindromes and Anagrams was influential among wordplay enthusiasts, and has been hailed by critics as a "
sine qua non for all serious
logologists" and the greatest ever book on palindromes. He is often cited, along with
Leigh Mercer and
J. A. Lindon, as one of the greatest palindromists of all time. == Personal life ==