Once upon a time, I read that the perfect age for writing quality poetry is twenty-three.  Apparently most of T.S. Elliot’s stuff came out then, the rest of his work being supposedly non-poetic. This resulted in 46 poems written at 23.

These poems came out exponentially faster and faster before my 24^th birthday on April 30^th – and I had to write in genres spanning from epic ballads to limericks to get 46 in on time. I guess that means, for better or worse, that’s the best poetry I’ll ever write. Sad day.

Who was I kidding?

Milton was blind and old—oooooold—when he publishedParadise Regained. Emily Dickenson was dead when her stuff came out. My favorite stuff from T.S. Elliot came out after his conversion. So yeah, old age is good for poetry too. Look at Burns and Berry.

(Side note: the name “Berry Burns” sounds like a shady car salesman).

Will I keep up this twice-my-age regimen every few years? Who knows, but this year, here’s to 50 poems at 25 to be written exponentially faster until I turn 26 on April Thirtyish. I do it this the second time around as a way to say: “Here’s to living life well before it’s too late.”

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004: How I’d Like to be Remembered
(as a Writer)

Prolific, but not necessarily approved
Prophetic, but not prescient
Profound, never pretentious
Proactive antiproblematic, proclaiming truth
provided I procure time to procreate
prose
not
cons
prodigal not prodigy
not prodigious, but prostrate—as in proskuneo, right Josh?
not profane, but honest about those times I’ve been profaned or
seen others to whom was done the same
not profiled nor profiteering but profuse in my use of prognostications
again, not the prescient kind but the prophetic sort:

If they could look back one day and say about me, “There was this writer once who really believed with all of his heart that God took the tattered threads of humanity and spun them together into one great, noble, blissed yarn. He believed it so much, he tried to weave his own tragic stories into God’s comedic epic, to submit his tales to The Tale.”

“What was his name?” they’ll ask.

“Man I dunno, but that ain’t the point, now is it? Point is…”

and so on.