The Best Poem I Will Ever Write

I've been away from my desk this weekend, scouting potential columnists at the Willamette Writers' annual conference. In my absence, I'll try something unusual for the front page, and present you a poem. This is a piece I wrote several years ago for an evening of paradelles and sestinas, read by the fire in one of the most idyllic places you can imagine. As you know, my habit when I'm away is to give you a puzzle, but (a) I know you don't all love the puzzles, and (b) this piece counts as a puzzle, if you want to check my work. (Or write your own!) I'll explain:

A paradelle is a poetry form invented as a joke by Billy Collins, but blamed on the French. It is not an easy form. Collins describes it thusly:

"The paradelle is one of the more demanding French fixed forms, first appearing in the langue d'oc love poetry of the eleventh century. It is a poem of four six-line stanzas in which the first and second lines, as well as the third and fourth lines of the first three stanzas, must be identical. The fifth and sixth lines, which traditionally resolve these stanzas, must use all the words from the preceding lines and only those words. Similarly, the final stanza must use every word from all the preceding stanzas and only these words."

So I did my best.

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 the only existing copy, and throws it into a convenient fire)
Rest in piece, worthy poem.