Thoughts of KleeAbout this book
These poems follow my thoughts on reading the notebooks of Paul Klee. Volume I: the thinking eye, and Volume II: the nature of nature. If I haven’t misunderstood his notes, these could be his thoughts; however, the power of a mind to transform its inputs and to produce something that fits in with everything else, my experience and my limitations, should not be underestimated; therefore, any student of Paul Klee should be sceptical. Nevertheless, I hope that these poems add to the discussion.
I hope that my liberties may be excused, even though I am a poet, not an artist. Paul Klee said, “I ask . . . that you do not slavishly follow the schemes that are shown but merely take them as models for your own vivid creation. They are to serve merely to give you ideas.” (Vol.2, p.181)
On the cover is my photo of Japanese maple leaves and a border of glacial stones, wet with rain. On the contents page is “Sinbad the Sailor” by Paul Klee. He painted this work in 1920 as an illustration for 1001 Arabian Nights. I am grateful to be able to feature it here since I have admired the work since I was a boy. The original is in Kunstmuseum (an art museum in Basel, Switzerland).
Links and shortcuts
In any page, you can click on or touch links to jump around in this book.
- Each entry in the contents links to the poem.
- The title for a poem links back to the contents, highlighting the entry for the poem.
- Words in the headers and footers link to the index, 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).
| 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 | |
| ⌥ ▲ | select the previous poem, or, from the top poem, open the previous page | |
| ⌥ ▼ | select the next poem, or, from the bottom poem, open the next page |
The poet
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).
You may email tom/AT/liztomsharp/DOT/-c-o-m-/ to share comments on this work.
