I noticed this recent pingback:

I was browsing around some poetry blogs this morning when I happened to see a poem that was quite well written and I felt needed a moment to be looked at. The subject isn’t the most interesting to me but the imagery is very well done. Some of the rhymes are a bit of a stretch and sound a bit awkward but it is very well written none the less.
Go take a look here.

I wrote that poem when I was 18 years old. I’d like to think I’ve grown since then, both as a man and as a writer.

I hope so anyway.

I recently came across my old notebooks filled with my earliest work. I even had a poetry collection online, titled When a Man Loves. Funny that back then 1) I was not a man and 2) I was not in love. Check out the introduction:

Welcome to my place on the net
In order to be here we must’ve met
Please be sure to sign the guestbook
So I can contact you if I find out there’s something you took
But, seriously, enjoy yourself and come back again
But you better not send any of your trifling friends
‘Cause I don’t want them stealing any of this
Or I’m gonna have ‘em kissing my fists
But on the real and very QT
Here’s where you ought to be
So here you go ladies and gents
The poetry of the one they call PlatinumPrince

You like that, don’t you? Haha. Honestly, I don’t know who called me PlatinumPrince, but I do remember having a BlackPlanet page with that name.

I won a couple of poetry contests back in the day and was even published in a Poetry.com collection. It’s funny, though, because when I read any of those poems, I can’t help but think, “How did this win anything?”

I admit that I am my worst critic and I expect nothing less than my best. Back then, I suppose that was my best. The man and writer that I am today, though, thinks there is always room for improvement.

This quest for perfection is probably what delayed that book I started working on some time ago. It’s cool, though, because I now realize that it wasn’t meant to be. The way I see it, everything happens for a reason and it just wasn’t meant to be for me to finish that book. It also didn’t help that I deleted everything pertaining to it, but that’s beside the point.

Now I have the opportunity to give it another go, and I think I’m ready for it. More importantly, are you?

Post Title Download
Remy Shand – “Looking Back on Vanity” from The Way I Feel