SESTINA SATURDAY: On Matthew B. Crawford's SHOP CLASS AS SOUL CRAFT

I've finished, just right now, a book on work,
But more than that, in every respect.
It's Matthew Crawford's Shop Class as Soul Craft,
One that has made me ponder how a trade
Can really differ from a job. I care
To make clear this distinction. What result

Will come of this? I hope it will result
In helping you, my readers, think of work
In new ways, and to contemplate the care
It takes to fix and build things, and respect
The shrewd and thoughtful men who chose a trade
Like fixing motors and make it a craft.

What really, though, makes of a job a craft?
The way it does engage one? The result
That something functions well? Who'd trade
That proof of effort for just busy work
And social nebulosity? Respect
Is given wrongly to those who don't care.

What's college for, if not to learn to care
About things quite beyond oneself? The craft
Of learning, though, is lost in this respect:
Mere training for a cubicle results
When students go to school, an eye on work
That better pays than mere ungenteel trade.

But find a man who truly knows his trade,
His engines and his wires and parts, whose care
Is given to what truly makes things work,
And you might find more wisdom in that craft
Than shown by office stooges, real result
Subsumed in process and unreal respect.

Divided souls who work but don't respect
Or realize real things would often trade
For jobs that have some tangible result,
Says Crawford; might again begin to care
About just why they're here, and thus to craft
Anew their souls while eyes and hands do work.

But it's not just about work and respect:
While craftsmanship in trade is fine itself,
One taught to care is his own good result.

In Which Steven T. Seagle & Marco Cinello's SOUL KISS Gives Me A Fat Lip

Whoever said "you hurt the ones you love

Must never have hurt someone they despised,"

So says our heroine, standing above

A slimeball of a boss she's pulverised

And sent to hell as part of her new deal

With Mephistopholes in Soul Kiss, now

In hardcover. The story packs a real

And raw punch, leaves a fat lip, telling how

Miss Lilli, rescued from an awful fate

Must pay an awful price. Cinello's drawn

A hot tomato, acting out of hate

But also out of love, which seems forgeone

As such conclusions go, till Seagle's twist

Makes this book something that must not be missed.

In Which I Go Eww Over Chew

The artwork here is loose and slightly crazed

Befitting this demented tale of food

From Layman and Guillory. None have praised

Them highly enough for this weirdly crude

New comic that depicts a future more

Bizarre than any I've yet seen, in which

A psychic reads by eating, and his chore

Is tracking chicken traffickers. A niche

Within the FDA is his, and they're atop

The law enforcement hierarchy due

To chicken's prohibition. Make it stop?

Oh no, for we've a hero, Tony Chu,

A cibopath who can solve any crime

With just a bite of victim, given time!

In Which I Ponder Some New Kind Of Slaughter

Sonneteer's note: The full title of the graphic novel reviewed here is Some New Kind of Slaughter - or - Lost in the Flood (And How We Found Home Again): Diluvian Myths from Around the World (and you thought my titles were long!).

Did this ark save or just delay us, asks

Ziusudra, afloat amidst the flood

That haunts our legends, dramas, myths and masques.

Some New Kind of Slaughter does not, in blood,

But water drowns the world as tales unfold

From all times and all cultures. Noah's there,

Nuwa, Manu, Tamendonare, old,

Uncanny figures all, each comes aware

Of what's to come, as in our present day

One woman sees the facts of what we've done

And knows it all could happen just that way

To us. As stories twine we're watched by one

Great turtle, who'll inherit a wet world,

So Mann and Lewis' nightmare is unfurled.

In Which I Am Swept Away By Richard Holmes

o_simpson4, originally uploaded by escapeintolife.

We poets love our science; now there's proof
In Richard Holmes' latest, lovely book
The Age of Wonder. No one kept aloof
From gaping at balloons, or from a look
At where the Herschels found Uranus through
A telescope of William's own design,
His sister Caroline at last getting her due
For all she did to help. And there's the fine
Example Joseph Banks' trip set for all.
Erasmus Darwin, Wordworth, Shelley, mine
Own fav'rite, Byron, were all kept in thrall
As these discoveries were made and I'm
Only on Chapter Four! There's still more time!

BONUS SONNET: In Which I Geek Out On Some Steampunk Voodoo

A clockwork universe is what I crave,

The most of all when fiction's what I seek.

Machine oil, steam, and heroes who behave

Like gentlemen when helping out the meek.

These make me smile, so Adam Christopher

Was at a great advantage from the start.

In Devil in Chains mighty deeds occur

By men with a surfeit of brains and heart,

But nothing supernatural; they're just

Men who use ingenuity to fight

A Lovecraft horror dwelling 'neath the dust

On Britain's Isle of Man. It's a delight!

Oh how I love the romance of steampunk.

I want to fly next time. I've packed my trunk.

SONNET REVIEW: Mat Johnson & Warren Pleece's INCOGNEGRO

My heart is breaking as I'm reading this,
Mat Johnson's tale of black passing as white
In rural Mississippi's raw abyss
Of racism, of murder and of spite.
Our hero, Zane, has made a pseudonym
Of naming names and calling crimes as crimes :
His skin is light and he's no fool. His grim
Crusade brings him right up against his times,
Confronting hate, betrayal, murder and
His own role as the Incognegro, which
He's proud to have until what he has planned
Goes off the rails when his friend gets the itch
To come along. I'd say this work compares
To Spiegelman's and Sacco's startling wares.

SONNET REVIEW: Jeremy C. Shipp's Vacation

A Lewis Carroll world is Jer'my Shipp's:
Its denizens are fiercer, though, and drag
Protagonists along on fearsome trips
Through their own minds and fears. Jeremy's bag
Of tricks is subtler than just monster tales.
A missing twin like dear old Phillip Dick's,
A revolution in the making, bales
Of unknown drugs and cultures, Meek and Tics
In endless war (the Third Word and the First)
Fog up this mirror world. Into this, toss
A hapless teacher, living out his worst
And dearest dreams at once. And while his loss
On this Vacation seems at first severe,
The affirmation he gains made me cheer.

In Which I Am Bowled Over By A Multimedia Webcomic Featuring A Guy With A Bra On His Head

One day post-migraine and I've just blown out

My brain on a web comic (and a flick

But Wolverine's not what I'm all about

This afternoon) that tripped me out so quick

I read the whole thing in one sitting, well,

The whole thing that is posted thus far. I'll

Need rehab to get past NAWLZ and - oh hell! 

Prepare yourself for weirdness nonpareil;

A multimedia bludgeon there awaits.

Thought-casting, mad bionics, trip and trance,

Internal serotonin taps, hot dates

With triple-G bras and with cars that dance

(Or stomp at least). The future here is weird;

Exactly what the likes of Falwell feared.

In Which I Decide Not To Wait Until Issue #5

I've only seen a mere twenty percent
Of this new book but I find I can't wait
To share my admiration of that bent
Old Warren Ellis and to here relate:
Ignition City's taken o'er my mind!
It's sick in parts - for instance much concerned
With pellet food once it is left behind
Well-used in chamber pots (yes they have spurned
The shiny Gernsback world in lots of ways) -
But artful. Where do spacemen go to die?
Per Warren and Gianluca, to a place
Where they can only stare up at the sky
And drink away their memories, and gape
At Mary Callipygia Raven's shape.

Greek Tragedies Do Not Need Translated Into Slang

I may be a curmudgeon, I'll admit,
But I am not impressed by what I learn
About this new translation of, to wit,
The Oresteia. Really, did we yearn
To hear the chorus asking of the queen
If she is optimistic? Talk about
Lese majeste! Like everyone I've seen
Productions in black leather or without
One reference to the Trojan War and such.
They love to reinterpret with a spin
These great old plays, but sometimes it's too much.
I won't go so far as to call it sin.
But Agammemnon does not say "OK."
And I don't have to read it. End essay.

Part Two of a Sonnet-Form Review of Brian Keene's Castaways, With Perhaps An Excursis On Keene's Place In Literature

I am a jerk, I'm willing to concede,
At least when it comes to the fate of folk
In novels. It fulfils in me a need
To laugh at gory deaths as at a joke.
Which is how Brian Keene's fam'ly stays fed.
I chortle like a ghoul through all his tales
As characters galore just wind up dead,
And each attempt at rescue just plain fails;
Not one of them will e'er escape his doom.
His stories are intended more to scare
Than to make my rude laughter fill the room.
I'm pretty sure, though, that he doesn't care.
He writes, we buy, both sides end with a win.
And, satisfied, we do it all again.

BONUS SONNET on Brian Keene's New Novel, 135 Pages In

Is Brian Keene a rabid Tom Waits fan,
I'm wond'ring as I'm half-through Castaways?
He's got a villain who completely can
Be taken for the "hero" Tom portrays
In one of his Mule Variations songs.
"What's He Doing In There" is Matthew's theme --
All 'bout the kind of guy who ne'er belongs
On a suburban street, whose ev'ry scheme
Is analyzed by neighbor types, so sure
That what he's doing there just isn't good,
His motives cannot ever be quite pure,
Just look at him, a creepy spaced-out hood!
And in the book we see that they are right!
As he commences murder in the night!