Agent’s Lament (or Publishers.. whatever)

In response to a tweet an hour ago by Salt Publishing, bemoaning the weather in Cromer,

“SALT ‏@saltpublishing

1h Hello winter, my old friend, / When will you ever bleeding end? / And #Cromer pier is still so freezing, / And my chest is softly wheezing.”

I was moved to write this, on behalf of and in empathy with the sufferings of poor agents (and publishers) who do have to put with so much...

My Simon & Garfunkelian Blues.

Call it: “Agent’s lament” (Or Publishers?)

Here goes (and remember its humble origin as emanating from one of those so derided here)

“Hello writer, my old bane,

You’ve come to pester me again,

Despite rejection, are you so deranged?  

My derision, was it not, all too plain,

Scarce restrained,

Within the bounds of license?

In endless reams you write like those,

Whose narrow feats of cobbled prose,

’Neath contempt, so deadly dull and camp,

Sputter sulphur like an old gas lamp,

Choking shadows along those blind alleys, 

Your galleys,

That just astound my good sense.

In naked daylight can you not see,

You’re one of thousands, more maybe,

Writing words without thinking,

Writing sentences without linking,

Writing drivel that no one wants to share,

Friends don’t dare,

Disturb your profound ignorance.

“Fool,” said I, “you do not know,

Genius like a cancer grows,

So heed my words that I might reach you,

Take my advice that I might teach you

To give up now,” but on deaf ears my words fell,

And echoed 

In the empty chambers of his mind.

And those authors stood and gaped

At the neon god they aped,

And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming,

And the sign said, profitable words are written in the publisher’s halls, 

Not tenement walls.

So just go drown in the sound of silence.”

Dear reader ,
If you like this (as we lonely Amazonians are wont to say), why not try:
The Walrus and the Bookseller.
or
A Limericked Look at Rude Reviewers
or, indeed,
 Aloysius B. KattelBach’s, On Book Titles and other Tittle-Tattle
 and many more scrapings from the floor of culinary creativity. 

After an adventurous night, last night, this...