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 arrive at the correct or fun solution of the puzzle ...

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 ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wr ...

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. Typically, ligh ...

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. ...

, and

children's poetry Children's poetry is poetry written for, 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. Children have always enjoyed both works of p ...

. 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 Borough of Runnymede, of which it is the largest settlement. History The town is recorded as ''Atte ...

and

Weybridge Weybridge () is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge 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 crossing point of the ...

. 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, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its su ...

, 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" ''Unde ...

E. E. Cummings Edward Estlin Cummings, who was also known as E. E. Cummings, e. e. cummings and e e cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobi ...

T. E. Brown Thomas Edward Brown (5 May 183029 October 1897), commonly referred to as T. E. Brown, was a late-Victorian scholar, schoolmaster, poet, and theologian from the Isle of Man. Having achieved a double first at Christ Church, Oxford, and electio ...

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...

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

, and

Ernest L. Thayer Ernest Lawrence Thayer (; August 14, 1863 – August 21, 1940) was an American writer and poet who wrote the poem "Casey" (or " Casey at the Bat"), which is "the single most famous baseball poem ever written" according to the Baseball Almanac, a ...

. His palindromic poems appeared occasionally in '' Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics'', and several were collected in

Howard W. Bergerson Howard William Bergerson (July 29, 1922 – February 19, 2011) was an American writer and poet, noted for his mastery of palindromes and other forms of wordplay. Work Bergerson's first volume of poetry, ''The Spirit of Adolescence'', was publi ...

's '' Palindromes and Anagrams''. Lindon is also noted as being the world's first writer of

vocabularyclept poetry A vocabularyclept poem is a poem which is formed by taking the words of an existing poem and rearranging them into a new work of literature. Vocabularyclept poetry was first proposed in 1969 by '' Word Ways'' editor Howard Bergerson. He took his l ...

, 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 scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of L ...

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 Dmitri Alfred Borgmann (October 22, 1927 – December 7, 1985) was a German-American author best known for his work in recreational linguistics. Early life Borgmann was born on October 22, 1927, in Berlin, Germany, to Hans and Lisa Borgmann. F ...

, 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 square An antimagic square of order ''n'' is an arrangement of the numbers 1 to ''n''2 in a square, such that the sums of the ''n'' rows, the ''n'' columns and the two diagonals form a sequence of 2''n'' + 2 consecutive integers. The smallest a ...

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 The ''Worm Runner's Digest'' (''W.R.D.'') was created in 1959 by biologist James V. McConnell after his experiments with memory transfer in planarian worms generated a torrent of mail enquiries. The ''W.R.D.'' published both satirical articles, s ...

''. 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