James Albert Lindon ( – 16 December 1979) was an English

puzzle A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to find the solution of the puzzle. There are differe ...

enthusiast and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

specialising in

light verse Light poetry or light verse is poetry that attempts to be humorous. Light poems are usually brief, can be on a frivolous or serious subject, and often feature word play including puns, adventurous rhyme, and heavy alliteration. Nonsense poetry i ...

constrained writing Constrained writing is a literary technique in which the writer is bound by some condition that forbids certain things or imposes a pattern. Constraints are very common in poetry, which often requires the writer to use a particular verse form. D ...

, and

children's poetry Children's poetry is poetry children's literature, written for, appropriate for children, appropriate for, or enjoyed by children. Children's poetry is one of the oldest art forms, rooted in early oral tradition, folk poetry, and nursery rhymes ...

. Lindon was based in

Addlestone Addlestone ( or ) is a town in Surrey, England. It is located approximately southwest of London. The town is the administrative centre of the Runnymede (borough), Borough of Runnymede, of which it is the largest settlement. Geography Addlesto ...

and

Weybridge Weybridge () is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge, Elmbridge district in Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. The settlement is recorded as ''Waigebrugge'' and ''Weibrugge'' in the 7th century and the name derives from a cro ...

. His poems often won weekly newspaper competitions, but seldom appeared in anthologies, though poems of his did appear in ''Yet More Comic and Curious Verse'', compiled by J. M. Cohen, published by Penguin Books in 1959. Among his anthologised works are numerous

parodies A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satirical or ironic imitation. Often its subject is an original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, etc), but a parody can als ...

, including spoofs of

Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer, whose works include the poems " Do not go gentle into that good night" and " And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Un ...

, E. E. Cummings, T. E. Brown,

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician, photographer and reluctant Anglicanism, Anglican deacon. His most notable works are ''Alice ...

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...

, and Ernest L. Thayer. His palindromic poems appeared occasionally in '' Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics'', and several were collected in Howard W. Bergerson's '' Palindromes and Anagrams''. Lindon is also noted as being the world's first writer of vocabularyclept poetry, in which poems are constructed by rearranging the words of an existing poem. Author

Martin Gardner Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing magic, scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writin ...

often spoke highly of Lindon's poetry, referring to him as the greatest English writer of comic verse. His skill at wordplay was similarly lauded, with Gardner, Bergerson, Dmitri Borgmann, and others proclaiming him to be among the world's finest palindromists. In addition to being a poet, Lindon was an accomplished writer and solver of puzzles, especially those in

recreational mathematics Recreational mathematics is mathematics carried out for recreation (entertainment) rather than as a strictly research-and-application-based professional activity or as a part of a student's formal education. Although it is not necessarily limited ...

. He was responsible for most of the pioneering work on antimagic squares.

Bibliography

Lindon's poetry appears in the following anthologies, edited volumes, and journals: *J. M. Cohen, ed. ''Yet More Comic and Curious Verse''. Penguin, 1959. *'' Worm Runner's Digest''. 1959–. *''The Guinness Book of Poetry 1958–59''. Putnam, 1960. *Martin Gardner. ''The Annotated Snark''. Simon & Schuster, 1962. *Martin Gardner, ed. ''The Annotated Casey at the Bat: A Collection of Ballads about the Mighty Casey''. Dover, 1967. *'' Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics''. Greenwood Periodicals ''et al.'', 1968–. * Howard W. Bergerson. Palindromes and Anagrams. Dover, 1973. *''Oxford Dictionary of Phrase, Saying, and Quotation'', Oxford University Press, 1997.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lindon, James Albert 1910s births 1979 deaths Recreational mathematicians Mathematics popularizers Palindromists Anagrammatists English male poets 20th-century English poets People from Addlestone People from Weybridge 20th-century English male writers