The Lives of Sharks – A Natural History of Shark Life, by Daniel C Abel and R Dean Grubbs, is a hardback book about sharks. It contains information about, and pictures of, sharks. If you or a friend or relative is interested in sharks, this book is very likely to be worthwhile having or gifting, largely due to its entirely shark-related content. I enjoyed reading about sharks, and looking at the pictures of sharks, and can recommend it on that basis.
Editor: ‘More pls. Word-count too low.’
Without anything further, other than extraneous word-count, to add in regard to this excellent, beautifully bound book, about sharks and pretty much everything related to sharks, I will bolster this review of The Lives of Sharks with a haiku in the senryu style.
Sharks smiling, eager,
Pleasing you as they chew,
You feel warm, wanted.
Editor: ‘Ben, you need at least 400 words. This is pathetic, not to mention the authors and publishers will see it as superficial, glib, and brain-dead. And what’s with the haiku? You haven’t even mentioned any issues with human-shark interactions beyond simply being eaten. You’re not reviewing Jaws, you idiot.’
I will attempt to end this review with another haiku, this time in a more traditional kareji style.
Soaring freedom, fed.
An old seal, relieved of life.
My pups inside soon fly.
Editor: ‘ffs! Global biodiversity crisis! Criminal overfishing of our oceans! Staggering annual culling of shark species! Entire species going extinct! Marine ecosystems heaved over critical tipping points! Think you might like to lift your fecking game and write something that isn’t shite? At least get the fecking word-count!’
With the encouragement of my editor, I will attempt a final haiku in the considerably more difficult tanka style.
The hunt has been long,
Quarry absent in the blue,
I search, while above;
Queasy diesel stink
Overwhelms desire for life,
I hate this killing.
Editor: ‘I give up. Write whatever you fecking like – no publisher in their right minds will ever give you another book to review.‘
I shall conclude this review with a final haiku, this time in the much more difficult, and more literary haibun form.
When I wipe my fingers clean of grease,
sated and fed with the remains of the killer of my people,
I will not see the killing of theirs.
Readers can find more resources at:
https://www.marineconservation.org.au/save-our-sharks/
https://sdgs.un.org/partnerships/global-priorities-conserving-sharks-and-rays-2015-2025-strategy
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01628-1
The Lives of Sharks by Daniel C. Abel and R. Dean Grubbs. Hardback (B315) | Jan 2024 | Princeton University Press | 9780691244310 | 288pp | AUD$59.99, Distributed by NewSouth Books
B.P. Marshall is a scriptwriter and author (not a poet), and has both swum with sharks and killed them as by-catch working on a prawn trawler. He no longer eats prawns or sharks.
Editor: ‘Finally, the right *******g word-count!’
