Paper Script*

Can you help me?

There is a book I would like to read

Hidden among the paper trees

Aisles at the bookstore

There is a story I would like to find

One lost text to make mine

Without a known author or title

The tale within is what I will write

So that someone just might

Know and tell me the answers

It is a paper world with paper streets

And newspaper sidewalks and writer’s beats

Manuscripts rare make big business there

A man must protect a manuscript rare

From all those who would dare

To murder the Raven like Poe

That is all I know.

Can you help me?

*[Note]: The story described in this poem is actually a book I found once on a shelf in B&N. It told about a city of writers where there was a manuscript so rare and valuable people would sacrifice everything to own it—and the opening mimicked the Lemony Snicket style of warning the reader “do not begin this book half-heartedly” because they might become trapped in that world. Perhaps there is some truth to this statement. I put the book back and am scouring bookshelves trying to discover it again.

So if anyone has an idea what book I mean or its author, please contact me.