Not terrible was actually fair praise, coming from Barnaby Wye, so Ford was pleased with the assessment. At least, he was until Wye got around to talking about the poem's eroticism, at which point his cheeks colored heavily. "Er... ah... no," he admitted, rather at a loss for words. Ford interacted with ghosts regularly enough to know that it was silly to expect they would hold all the same values as living people, when it came to morals and societal norms and everything like that, but he was still fairly shocked to hear someone discuss something so taboo so openly. He nearly asked were you hoping for an erotic poem? but decided against it; he wasn't sure he would enjoy the answer. Ford's poetry collection didn't really extend very far into that area, so if that was what Wye was expecting he was bound to be disappointed... unless Ford brought out the diary that Elmer Macmillan had gifted him earlier that year, which contained quite a bit of poetry that was unsettlingly explicit. It wasn't very good, though, so it was equally likely to leave him disappointed — just in a different way.
"I don't think any of these are. They're written by a woman," he pointed out in defense of the Sonnets. "I don't think they're — er, allowed to write about those sorts of things," he said a little awkwardly. Not that women didn't have sex, of course, but they certainly didn't write poetry about it when they did. And if they did, it didn't get published and spread around. Women were supposed to be dainty and modest, after all. "And besides," he protested weakly, "I can't read you erotic poetry in the garden. We'd shock the neighbors. Especially if I read with — drama," he said, approaching new heights of embarrassment at the mere thought.
"I don't think any of these are. They're written by a woman," he pointed out in defense of the Sonnets. "I don't think they're — er, allowed to write about those sorts of things," he said a little awkwardly. Not that women didn't have sex, of course, but they certainly didn't write poetry about it when they did. And if they did, it didn't get published and spread around. Women were supposed to be dainty and modest, after all. "And besides," he protested weakly, "I can't read you erotic poetry in the garden. We'd shock the neighbors. Especially if I read with — drama," he said, approaching new heights of embarrassment at the mere thought.
Set by Lady!