The Best Poem I Will Ever Write

A friend of mine threw a party, and challenged the guests to write a paradelle, a blisteringly complicated form invented in 11th-century France, and not by Billy Collins as a joke. If you’ve never written one, and I’m sorry for you if you have, the first two lines of each stanza must be repeated, then the fifth and sixth lines are composed from, exclusively and exhaustively, the preceding words. Then the last stanza has to repeat all the previous words exactly once.

My poem was, by its own recognition, the best poem I’ll ever write.

This Is The Best Poem I Will Ever Write

Dedicated to Tom George’s paradelle, “This Is The Best Poem I Will Ever Write.”

This is the best poem I will ever write,
This is the best poem I will ever write.
To think that it was one of my very first,
To think that it was one of my very first.
It is the one, very best poem that ever was.
To write my will, I think first of this.

A grand piece of work; how eloquent and worthy!
A grand piece of work; how eloquent and worthy!
An excellent example is in it for the rest,
An excellent example is in it for the rest.
How is it an eloquent piece? In rest, for example,
And the excellent work, worthy of a grand.

I dedicate it to the greatest of my poetry,
I dedicate it to the greatest of my poetry.
This poem is so great it is to itself.
This poem is so great it is to itself.
This itself is great, to dedicate it so.
I, of poetry, the greatest; my poem is to it.

Of this: is it a first, to dedicate my eloquent poetry to itself?
It is, and it was so very excellent of the great one.
For this is the greatest poem I will
ever write.

My, how grand that is: “the best.”
I think to work an example of it.
(Poet crumples paper and throws it on the fire)
Rest in piece, worthy poem.