I was wondering if someone knew the word that describes a poem where each word begins with the letters of a previous word, of if such a word even exists.
An example of such a poem is this: http://crosswords.net23.net/poems/Joshua.html (I wrote it)
Someone told me there was a word for this kind of thing, but he couldn't remember it, either.
You started with an acrostic of 'JOSHUA':
An acrostic is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message.
Each instance after that is new acrostic of the word made from each letter in the original.
The scholarly term technopaegnia encompasses all kinds of interplay between the words of a poem and its structure, including (but not limited to) picture poems, acrostics, and other such puzzles. For facts about the term and links to many interesting examples of such poetry – ancient and modern – see my answer to another question.
