About this book

Tom Sharp reads his own work. Clifford Schwartz reads the poems by the original poets.

Clifford Joseph Schwartz is a teacher of Shakespeare and poetry, a consulting historian of poetry, and an actor and voiceover performer.

Katherine Kahrs took the photograph of Tom; Tom took the background photograph and drew the puzzle pieces that illustrate his poems. Tom produced these at 72 dots per inch using an original Macintosh, with the Thunderscan scanner in an ImageWriter.

The 2022 edition of this collection makes the layouts more readable on small screens, adds the combined cover, revises links in the footers, and simplifies and documents the keyboard shortcuts.

Links and shortcuts

In any page, you can click on or touch links to jump around in this book. Click a puzzle piece or portrait to play a reading of the poem. Click a second time to stop the reading.

Each entry in the contents links to the poem.
The title for a poem links back to the contents, highlighting its entry.
Words in the headers and footers link to the index, the chapter in the contents, a listing of books by the author, to this page, and to the previous and next poems in the book.

You may find the following keyboard equivalents to be convenient. Here I use the symbol ⌥ for the option key on Mac/OS or the alt key on Windows, ⇧ for the shift key, and ⏎ for the return (enter) key. Arrow keys are ◄ (left), ► (right), ▲ (up), and ▼ (down).

Keyboard shortcuts for navigating this book
Context	Keys	Jump to / Behavior
combined cover	⇧ ⌥ ▲	books by Tom Sharp
	⇧ ⌥ ◄	Sharpgiving Press
	⌥ ▼	cover for poems by Tom Sharp
	⇧ ⌥ ▼	cover for original poems
	⌥ ►	About this book (this page)
cover for poems by Tom Sharp	⇧ ⌥ ▲	combined cover
	⇧ ⌥ ►	cover for original poems
	⌥ ►	About this book (this page)
	⇧ ⌥ ▼	Preface
cover for poems by original poets	⇧ ⌥ ▲	combined cover
	⇧ ⌥ ►	cover for Tom Sharp
	⌥ ►	About this book (this page)
	⇧ ⌥ ▼	Preface
Preface	⌥ ▲	cover by Tom Sharp
	⇧ ⌥ ▲	cover for original poems
	⇧ ⌥ ▼	About this book (this page)
About this book	⇧ ⌥ ▲	Preface
	⌥ ▼	contents of poems by Tom Sharp
	⇧ ⌥ ▼	contents of original poems
contents of poems by Tom Sharp	⇧ ⌥ ▲	About this book (this page)
	⇧ ⌥ ►	contents of original poems
	⌥ ▼	select the next entry in the contents
	⌥ ▲	select the previous entry in the contents
	⌥ ►	open the selected page
	⌥ ⏎	open the selected page
	⇧ ⌥ ▼	alphabetical index of poems by Tom Sharp
contents of original poems	⇧ ⌥ ▲	About this book (this page)
	⇧ ⌥ ►	contents of poems by Tom Sharp
	⌥ ▼	select the next entry in the contents
	⌥ ▲	select the previous entry in the contents
	⌥ ►	open the selected page
	⌥ ⏎	open the selected page
	⇧ ⌥ ▼	alphabetical index of original poems
alphabetical index of poems by Tom Sharp	⇧ ⌥ ▲	contents of poems by Tom Sharp
	⇧ ⌥ ►	alphabetical index for original poems
	⌥ ▼	select the next entry in the index
	⌥ ▲	select the previous entry in the index
	⌥ ►	open the selected page
	⌥ ⏎	open the selected page
	⇧ ⌥ ▼	Index of dedications
alphabetical index of original poems	⇧ ⌥ ▲	contents of original poems
	⇧ ⌥ ►	alphabetical index for poems by Tom Sharp
	⌥ ▼	select the next entry in the contents
	⌥ ▲	select the previous entry in the contents
	⌥ ►	open the selected page
	⌥ ⏎	open the selected page
	⇧ ⌥ ▼	Index of dedications
poem by Tom Sharp	⇧ ⌥ ▲	contents of poems by Tom Sharp
	⇧ ⌥ ◄	alphabetical index of poems by Tom Sharp
	⇧ ⌥ ►	corresponding poem by original poet
	⌥ ▲	open the previous page
	⌥ ▼	open the next page
	⇧ ⌥ ▼	dedication index
poem by original poet	⇧ ⌥ ▲	contents of original poems
	⇧ ⌥ ◄	alphabetical index of original poems
	⇧ ⌥ ►	corresponding poem by Tom Sharp
	⌥ ▲	open the previous page
	⌥ ▼	open the next page
	⇧ ⌥ ▼	index of dedications
index of dedications	⌥ ▲	alphabetical index of poems by Tom Sharp
	⇧ ⌥ ▲	alphabetical index of original poems
	⌥ ▼	select the next entry in the index
	⌥ ▲	select the previous entry in the index
	⌥ ◄	open the selected poem by Tom Sharp
	⌥ ►	open the selected original poem
	⇧ ⌥ ▼	Apology
Apology	⇧ ⌥ ▲	index of dedications
	⇧ ⌥ ◄	cover by Tom Sharp
	⇧ ⌥ ►	cover for original poems

The poet

Tom Sharp, Ph.D., holds twenty patents, is retired from IBM, is a member of Seldovia Village Tribe, and is the author of numerous books.

You may email tom/AT/liztomsharp/DOT/-c-o-m-/ to share comments on this work.

For an explanation of the origin of this book, see the Preface.