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"The Definitive Collection : June 2005 - December 2005 : Volume Three" was first published on 5 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 47 poem titles spread over 196 pages. 

What appears below is the introduction from the book:

Welcome to the third 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 From mostly unpublished work, I will be selecting poems worthy of inclusion in this final project.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.”

Initially it was decided to split the collection into blocks of 500, with an expectation that each block would produce enough content for one book. Even though the majority of my previous works emanated from the first 500 poems, there was still enough content to produce the first volume.

The culling process of the second block of 500 was much more difficult, and the end result is going to be split into volumes two and three. The original intention of producing five books has now been superseded and the exact number of books in “The Definitive Collection” is not yet determined.

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 Volume One, the poems were selected from a block covering a nine year period. In the case of Volume Two, the period of time covered is just over one year. In this volume, it is only six months.

The reason for the continual reduction in time frame, is a change of approach to writing. In June 2005, I returned to the United Arab Emirates for a holiday. In a trip of 14 days, I wrote 50 poems.

On returning back to Australia, I decided to challenge myself to write at least one poem every day starting on 1 July 2005. With a couple of exceptions, I did write at least one poem every day, for over 1000 days.

So as you can see, a large number of poems were written over a short period of time.

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 Three of “The Definitive Collection.”

Gary Dodd
May 2010

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