J A Lindon

I have been spending half an eternity looking for references to J A Lindon on the web. I first became curious of his work after recalling, from many years ago, of a spoof of "Poem in October" called "Poem in Tubwater."

It appears that many of his poems were only published in newspapers. However, he is credited with creating the first vocabularyclept poem!! This is when a poet is given the words from a poem, in alphabetical order, a,a,a, an, and, etc. and given the task of creating a new poem. He also did this 'blind' as due to an oversight he did not know what the previous poem was.

Although accedited as from Weybridge, he contributed to the 'Word Ways' magazine of Butler University, Indianappolis, where he wrote acrostic poetry as well as articles on poetic problems.

He was also very 'into' palindromic poems (read forwards/backwards by letter, word or line.)


Here is a spooky example of his (line) palindrome poetry (to be read at halloween!)

DOPPELGANGER

Entering the lonely house with my wife
I saw him for the first time
Peering furtively from behind a bush -
Blackness that moved,
A shape amid the shadows,
A momentary glimpse of gleaming eyes
Revealed in the ragged moon.
A closer look (he seemed to turn) might have
Put him to flight forever-
I dared not
(For reasons that I failed to understand)
Though I knew I should act at once.

I puzzled over it, hiding alone,
Watching the woman as she neared the gate.
Night after night.
Night after night
He came, and I saw him crouching,
Watching the woman as she neared the gate.
I puzzled over it, hiding alone-
Though I knew I should act at once,
For reasons that I failed to understand
I dared not
Put him to flight forever.

A closer look (he seemed to turn) might have
Revealed in the ragged moon
A momentarty glimpse of gleaming eyes
A shape amid the shadows,
Blackness that moved.

Peering furtively from behind a bush,
I saw him for the first time,
Entering the lonely house with my wife.



PS Is the fear of palindromes really aibohphobia?