All poets have an obligation to bear witness to the age in which they live. They also have a duty to rejuvenate the traditions of their art and renovate its forms. The epic is an expression of the ideology of empire. In the modern world it has been eclipsed by the popularity of the novel and the epic dimensions of cinematic art. "The Boy Who Remembered Everything" is a lyrical odyssey set against the backdrop of our contemporary understanding of the world. Part one, 'Coming of Age in the Universe', begins in the deep Darwinian past and ends in Einstein's surreal space-time continuum. From a prehistoric hell-scape comparable to Dante's chronicle of the underworld, we watch as human life emerges and great civilizations flourish, culminating in a century of holocaust and world war. Contemporary poetry and its traditional pretensions too often ignore our looming existential dilemma. After passage through a wormhole into a parallel universe, part two, 'Digest of a Soul' begins. This companion piece is a romantic celebration of the world of nature—-a vision of harmony printed as developmental milestones in a personal history—-from the playful fantasies of childhood to a transcendent vision of the numinous void.