I whispered “Holy shit” and “Jesus Christ” like a mantra. – Ryan Chapman
ju·ve·nil·ia | \ ˌjü-və-ˈni-lē-ə \
Definition of juvenilia
1: compositions produced in the artist’s or author’s youth.
I worried about publishing my juvenilia, but then I reminded myself, who really gives a shit?
These reports are my archive which will hopefully reside in The Cloud – whatever that is – until an insightful, perhaps even perspicacious, documentarian for PBS stumbles upon these priceless records and does an hour-long special. Like that guy who trims bushes into works of art.
Got out of the service in the spring of ’69. Fall, I’m sitting in Washington Square in Greenwich Village with my pencil and my pad and a hipster comes up and says, ‘everybody wants to be a writer, man.’ Married the next August to a blonde co-ed, I took an English class Fall 1970, which required some versified composition.
Here’s a sample.
Adverse
No idea have I of verse
It could be long, it could be terse.
It could be good, it could be worse.
See what I mean?
Sometimes I even come to think
That poetry does really stink.
And though I’m not quite in the pink,
I proved it.
Got a B+, the highest grade in the class.
The professor was a pompous asshole who, in the privacy of his office, said, “You, Mr. Welch, are an intellectual.”
Have you seen that PBS documentary about the topiary artist?
https://www.soulsgrowndeep.org/artist/pearl-fryar