Featured on November 17, 2001, November 15, 2003 and November 20, 2004)

"Boxers are a lot like poets," says Tom Smario.   "Poets don't write because they want to, they write because they have to.   Same with fighters.   It's an obsession. That's why they fight too long and don't know when to quit."

Tom makes his living as an orthopedic technician at Kaiser hospital, where he's worked for a quarter of a century. He says he's pretty good at making casts, has good hands and works fast. His time in emergency rooms and surgery has taught him how to deal quickly with bleeding and swelling, and, he says, he'd always liked boxing.

Tom is also a cornerman, or cutman, for pro boxers and has worked 150 or so professional bouts over the last fourteen years, including seven world championships and numerous title fights.

And, of course, Tom Smario is also a poet and the author of seven books of poetry

His newest collection, Knuckle Sandwiches continues where Notes Of A Cornerman left off.   These poems speak of training and courage and raw character and showdown.   For thousands of years, boxing has served as the ultimate metaphor for the test of the human spirit through single combat, the last bastion of barbarism in a society trying desperately to become politically correct. Through his words, we see past the blur of punches and hype to those rare, defining moments of combatants in the ring.   And possibly, catch a glimpse of the nature of our own defining moments.

"Working a corner is the most intense thing you can do," says Tom. "When you're doing it, there's nothing else. I never even know what round it is.   When you work in a hospital, you learn to separate yourself from people's pain.   When a boxer comes back to the corner with blood streaming down his face,   I don't feel his pain. I couldn't do my job if I did.   When you write, though, obviously you're not detached. Maybe I shut it off when it happens and go back and feel it later."