Ode to a Genre Writer

by G. K. Werner

Oh William, oh William, oh here is our ode,

To the master of genre’s method and mode.

Historical, romance, or fantasy play,

They all put the chinks in your purse in their day.

You wrote of the wizard; you wrote of the wag;

You wrote of the faerie, the rogue and the hag.

You wrote of the lovers from this house and that,

The nurse and the druggist, the witch and her vat,

Assassins and gamblers, the prince and his mom,

The senators’ plotting, an orator’s calm,

The boaster, the hoster, the jester, the priest,

The king and his soldiers, the greatest, the least.

You penned the best women, the wit off their tongue.

You penned the best speeches (aside from the puns).

You wrote for the scullery, palace and hall.

Oh William, oh William you wrote for us all.

Now scholars would bind you in school’s mothy tome,

And label you serious lit’rature’s own,

But they have forgotten, lost touch of the ‘thing’,

The play and the actors, the story must sing.

And so we pay tribute to you, genre’s king,

Our word-hoard’s high bard-king whose lines still do ring,

The writer for writers forever outsold,

The wordsmith who fashioned our genres of old.

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Copyright © 2002 by G. K. Werner. All rights reserved.
Originally published in Tower of Ivory, Vol. 2, Issue 3, 2002