And one of those moments that really stands out for this editor is the moment Zachary Fishel walked in the door of the Poets' Hall. Beneath my seat was a box of chapbooks for Zach. When a moment presented itself, we exchanged greetings and I presented him with his brand new chap, Prayerbook Bouquet, published that very day... 01-26-13!
Prayerbook Bouquet by Pennsylvanian/Ohioan Zach Fishel is a 24-page chapbook bristling with a bouquet of poetic gleanings. Poet John Dorsey wrote an introduction - or, in the themed design of the book, an invocation - which states "These poems about love, disappointment and youthful abandon offer the reader tiny moments of joy and quiet revelations. He is...making it a little safer to go into coffeeshops again...."
The front cover of Prayerbook Bouquet features a great photograph taken by Kathy Smith of her husband Steven B. Smith's hands.
Fishel's fifteen short-but-exquisitely crafted poems are bracketed by Dorsey's invocation, and the photographical benediction taken by Chandra Alderman:
Alderman's photo features her daughter's hands, and as you move through the poems in the chap, you remember we were all children once upon a time, and that, in Zach Fishel's words from his poem "Telephone Calls About a Sandwich",
"we remember what breathing is...as we unlearn catastrophes"
