In this collection of sonnets, John Manesis reexamines nursery rhymes, children's stories, and classic myths, casting them in different lights and variant points of view. Were Humpty Dumpty, Little Bear, Old King Cole and Icarus who they seemed to be? The three sonnets below are included in the poetry book.

The Ascent of Icarus

My father, Daedulus, a man of good intentions,
preoccupied himself with his inventions.
The lever, wedge, and maze were paramount
and I believed I was of no account.
Before we lifted off the Cretan shore,
he cautioned me and as he had before,
predicted our escape would represent
his most ingenious accomplishment.

But it was I who rose into that glare,
higher than even he would ever dare,
a moment which for once was mine to claim,
the feat forever coupled with my name.
And even as the feathers, one by one,
wafted down, I did not curse the sun.

Public Defender

Distinguished members of this avian jury,
the bird before your beaks, Passer domesticus,
could not have harbored such an awful fury,
would never have perpetrated a crime so vicious.
Not a feather of evidence, a forced confession,
sensational headlines in the Jailbird Gazette,
the usual witnesses that sing in unison,
the coroner a flighty, inexperienced vet.

While Cock Robin’s killer is flying high,
my client’s caged, indicted for this deed
because the prosecutor needs a fall guy,
a member of an overpopulated breed--
the sad, familiar tale of a common sparrow,
an immigrant who was framed by a bloody arrow.

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.

Reviews of Consider, If You Will 

     On the face of it, Consider, If You Will, is a cycle of eighty-five sonnets that explores aspects of our heritage of nursery rhymes, fairy tales, children’s literature, and Greek mythology with keen and original insights into their ongoing possibilities to inform and inspire our poetic thinking and in the process to offer us artful, high entertainment as well. But John Manesis has done something more than this. He has given us yet another sonnet sequence that sings its praises and love for a special object of affection—only this time that object is the very well-spring from which poets have drunk deeply for as long as we can remember.

                  ––George Economou, Professor Emeritus, English Department, University of Oklahoma

     This stimulating collection of sonnets moves through shared emotions and dilemmas of humankind.  These sonnets, rooted in nursery rhymes and fairly tales, suggest a universality of emotions and behavior.

                  --Catherine Cater, Professor Emerita, North Dakota State University. 

     I loved your ironic take on the seemingly simple nursery tales.  My favorites are the poems that allude to Greek mythology.  These could almost stand alone in a separate collection.

                  --Dorothea Bisbas, Poet Laureate of Coachella Valley, author of "Vinegar Flats."