About this book

Real life is surreal. I have relied on this assertion, even though it might not be true, to write small poems on Surrealist themes. This book is a somewhat milder, considerably less shocking version of Surrealism. It’s not a thesis on Surrealism, but it could be a way to start thinking about it.

This book and its organization are inspired by Mary Ann Caws and the Surrealist artworks and writings that she selected as editor of Surrealism (NY: Phaidon Press Inc., 2004).

On the cover is detail from a polychrome woodblock print, ink and color on paper, by Utagawa Hiroshige, made between 1797 and 1858, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET, JP217).

Words in the poems and their titles are assigned pseudo-random colors (adjusted to have sufficient color contrast). Why? Maybe because the Surrealists often relied on the suggestiveness of random patterns. Maybe because I believe that reading a poem should be a somewhat unpredictable experience. You can toggle colors using the “Blacken” link in the footers, or you may turn off default colorization here:

Links and shortcuts

In any page, you can click on or touch links to jump around in this 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
cover ⌥ ◄ Books by Tom Sharp
⌥ ▲ About Tom Sharp
⌥ ► about this book (this page)
⌥ ▼ contents
⇧ ⌥ ▼ contents
contents ⇧ ⌥ ▲ cover
⌥ ▼ select the next item in the contents
⌥ ▲ select the previous item in the contents
⌥ ► open the selected page
⌥ ⏎ open the selected page
poem ⇧ ⌥ ▲ contents
⌥ ◄ contents
⌥ ▲ open the previous page
⌥ ▼ open the next page
⌥ ⏎ remove or restore colorization

The poet

Tom Sharp, self portrait

Tom Sharp is a Native American of Aleut heritage, a member of Seldovia Village Tribe. He is the author of numerous books, including Spectacles: A Sampler of Poems and Prose, Taurean Horn Press (ISBN 0-931552-10-9), a novel, Hans and the Clock (ISBN 979-8580172484), The book of science, SciFi (ISBN 979-8694935210), Things People Do (ISBN 979-8687425568), The book of beliefs (ISBN 979-8683553593), The I Ching (ISBN 979-8573510620), Images (ISBN 979-8577560515), Aleut Artifacts (ISBN 979-8575608998), Aleut Words (ISBN 979-8582103394), and First Nations (ISBN 979-8682924769).

Tom Sharp’s initials