Frank, what a splendid poem.
There is an old folk tale that the great God of the competitions, one Martin Fagg, a schoolmaster now dead, once won every prize in a competition with his own name and various noms de plume. Cerainly Maud Gracechurch a doughty winner, was a canal boat owned by another winner, I think E. O. Parrott. And Bill Greenwell is/was Will Bellenger. I have entered as Phoebe Flood, but never won.
I once won the New Statesman Crossword (together with my wife) as Napoleon Bonaparte. My old mind is not up to crosswords any more, but I can still rhyme. Curious that.
Perhaps not. Christopher Smart composed his best poems on the walls of his cell in Bedlam.
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