The Verlaine Shirt

Paul Verlaine is one of my favorite poets. My introduction to his work was somewhat, shall I say, odd? I bought a shirt with a french poem on it. It looked wicked cool and vintage and I wore it like almost every day, if not every other. I was about 16. I would wear it to work where various former-french students would then stare at my chest stumbling over the pronunciation as they attempted to read it. I started to think maybe it wasen't such a good idea to wear a shirt with an actual poem, the content of which I was completely oblivious to. But, prudence, as usual, was thrown out the window. I just loved the shirt too much to compromise for propriety's sake. Eventually, the inevatable occured. Someone came in who happened to be fluent in French. [Damnit! Who actually speaks French these day? LOL] Oh! Verlaine! He proceeded to read outloud, somewhat inaudibly. As his eyeballs scanned back and forth his face grew red. I decided I needed to research this further. I ordered out-of-county loans from the library, practically every verlain book I could find with French on one side and English on the other. I found my poem. I haven't worn the shirt since, but am now an avid reader of Verlaine poetry.