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"The Definitive Collection : December 2005 - March 2006 : Volume Four" was first published on 21 July 2010. 

Its size is approx. 14.8 cm (5 13/16") wide by 21.0 cm (8 5/16") long, (also known as A5), and 12 mm (1/2") thick.

This volume contains 48 poem titles spread over 201 pages. 

What appears below is the introduction from the book:

Welcome to the fourth volume of “The Definitive Collection.” Thank you for choosing this book.

This book is part of a multi-book project. It is the final project on my journey of creating poetry books. This journey began in 2003 with my first book, “A nod and a smile.” At the time of publishing it, I had no idea that such a journey would be undertaken. I had compiled the book, and had the layout designed by a company. It was published under my own name, and as far as I was concerned, that was it.

Little did I know, what would follow. Little did I know, how many poems that I would subsequently write. Little did I know, how many people would find value in my first book.

So it was, that almost five years later, I would continue my journey of creating poetry books. Over the next two years, I would publish twelve small books, including a slightly revised, reformatted, and smaller sized version of my first book, “A nod and a smile.” I have now called them, my small poetry book collection.

To finish off, I am reviewing my entire collection of poetry, currently over 2700 poems. From mostly unpublished work, I will be selecting poems worthy of inclusion in this final project. Of course, not every poem can be selected, so there will be exceptions.

At first, I decided that the optimum book would be around 200 pages, both from a cost of production, a manageable content size, and potentially an interest perspective. The last point was made along the lines of “the bigger the book, the easier for the reader to lose interest.”

When first starting this project, I decided that the optimum book would be around 200 pages, both from a cost of production, a manageable content size, and potentially an interest perspective. The last point was made along the lines of “the bigger the book, the easier for the reader to lose interest.”

Initially, I decided to split the collection of poems into blocks of 500, with an expectation that each block would produce enough content for one book. The majority of my previous works have emanated from the first 500 poems, and yet, it was still possible to find enough content for the first volume.

The culling process for subsequent books quickly revealed that the original idea of one book for each block of 500 poems should be abandoned. It quickly became clear that several more books would be needed. In fact, the culling process resulted in 12 volumes being created.

One additional volume will be provided, containing a Poem Title Index and a Subject Index. As a general rule, poems over six pages in length, were excluded. As with anything, there have been some exceptions made to this rule.

The poems in this book are presented in the order in which they were written. The aim of this book is to touch the reader in such a way, that the person will want to pause and ponder each poem after reading it.

Is such an aim achievable? Now that is a question that only you, the reader, can realistically answer.

What I hope is, that for my part, I have given you enough encouragement and inspiration, to at least think about each poem.

The rest is up to you.

In the first three volumes, the period of time covered by each book reduced from nine years down to six months. In this book, the time period is only three months. It is during this time, that I was writing at least one poem every day. As you can imagine, a large number of poems were written over a short period of time.

In this volume, we traverse the Christmas - New Year period and there are a couple of poems relating to this festive season. There are two consecutive poems talking about jigsaw puzzles. Of interest, at the time of creating this book, I wondered if they both should be included. As you can see, they passed that test.

That is enough from me. It is hoped that you find what follows of value, of interest, and worth pausing and pondering.

I now invite you to read Volume Four of “The Definitive Collection.”

Gary Dodd
May 2010

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