Oak and Pulp

The muses turned polite, demure,
illiterate Tudor wives declaring books
a common thing. And so too pure
their patrons became, casting looks
at plot, suspense, and imagination,
declaring themselves too good
for such base ribaldry. The sleek quotidian
replaced, as pulp was brought from wood
and sold like hotcakes in a cold climate.
The genre tsars grew rich, as oak sellers
became bitter and pondered on their fate,
the bourgeois dearth on lists of bestsellers.

And so they started stealing tropes,
and said of course all great artists are thieves…