Consider, If You Will: Poems by John Manesis

John Manesis, a retired physician, has reexamined a collection of nursery rhymes, children's poems and classic myths, casting them in different lights and alternate points of view. This collection of sonnets, sure to entertain, will make readers pause and reconsider a host of characters like Simple Simon, Bluebeard, Little Bear, Icarus, and Sisyphus, as in the following poem: The Quiet Ones Yes, there was a flock of us, it's true, squished together in that smelly shoe. The old woman always ate the bread, while we, her children, got the broth instead, and even though we never said a peep, she caned us all before we went to sleep. Now that we are grown and she has passed, we tell ourselves those days are in the past. We meet just once a year, at the cemetery, up on the hill outside of Canterbury. Sitting far apart, we picnic there, enjoy the view, inhale the open air, and just for fun, throw rocks at her headstone. Then, in single file, we start for home.

John Manesis, a retired physician, was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin in 1936. He and his wife, Bess, have lived in Fargo, North Dakota since 1974. His poetry has appeared in several anthologies and sixty other literary publications, including Colere, North Dakota Quarterly, Wisconsin Review, Lyric, Measure, Bay Area Poetry Coalition, Mediphors and Mayo Magazine. His first book of poetry, With All My Breath, was published in 2003 and the second, Other Candle Lights, was published by Seaburn Publishing in 2008. He has given public readings from his poetry books in California, North Dakota, and Wisconsin.