To my publisher

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Book 1 Page 21

To my publisher

To my dear publisher,

I received your letter.

You say you want to put my plays and poems and stories in a book

so everyone else can have a look. O bravo, just splendid!

I’m so grateful and humbled, it brings me to my knees.

Yes! Print my plays, my poems and stories, ‘please!’

Oh to think! I can’t wait! When ‘I’ am famous, ‘me,’ an author!

when I am famous and not a pauper.

I’ll write home to me dad and mum and tell them what I’ve done.

May be then they’ll be proud of their wayward son.

You see, they don’t believe I have any talent in writing.

They want me to be a tailor like my father,and we seldom stop fighting.

Maybe now they’ll stop criticising me for the way I mix words.

They say that my stories are no good, “ for I always put the nouns

where the other’s put the verbs.”

You will tell me I trust if you want to edit my grammar.

You see, I speak this way on purpose, for effect, for the over all drama.

It’s all part of the story I feel. I don’t mean to be derogative,

but I do think it’s an author’s choice,

to mix words to their own personal prerogative.

I’m so glad that others will get to read my stories.

Mind you, it’s not that I’m in it for the fame or the glory.

So you have my permission, my dear publisher, to go ahead and publish a book. Let everyone I know be able to have a look.

Yours truly,

William Shakespeare.

(Please turn over.)

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P.S.

Thanks so very much for your encouraging words about my play.

Do you really think I’ll be famous some day!?

I was so pleased to hear I had moved you to tears,

that deep down I had struck a bell in my opening line;

“Alas poor Yoric, I knew him well,”

I was worried that I was being a shade ‘dramatic.’

But Alas! This is how I felt for my closest friend, Yoric.

You know, since Yoric’s death, I have begun to write much.

It’s truly amazing how a tragedy can bring out the writer’s touch.

I have quite a few stories these days,

mulling over and over and over in my head.

But alas for now, it is late, the candle burneth low,

and it is time for bed.

You will let me know how things are going.

I am keen for the money these day's, I am quite poor!

And O, give my regards to your two children,

John and Mary, and of course! your lovely wife, Elinor.

Yours Sincerely,

Bill.