The name-dropping game
caught up with me

somewhere in college,
English Lit class, as I recall,

when I too eagerly mentioned
that I was a descendant of

James Boswell, the biographer
of Samuel Johnson and inveterate

traveler throughout Europe,
chummy with Voltaire

and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
The professor quite stiffly

assessed my haughty remarks
and said he recalled reading

Boswell’s books on Corsica
and travels in the Hebrides,

but also noted that he failed
to get married, became a

renowned whoremonger,
and contracted syphilis

before his writing career
terminated abruptly.

Bill Roberts