Don Fisher

On the Edge of Grace Don Fisher

On the Edge of Grace traces the path of a reverently examined life, making the ordinary seem rare, as in this excerpt from a poem called Good Sheep: "In your own way you like the taste of grass./ We are sheep dealing with the world as it is not as we'd like it to be./ We don't want to carry the horns of a steer. We don't want to be ridden like horses. We don't want to roll in filth like pigs. We are sheep./ I am one. I dream of mastering the bleat making it lovely more dulcet."

These poems are dulcet, observant, sensual, haunting, and at times, transcendent, revealing connections between disparate subjects and breathing music into small moments. What I like best about the collection is the wry smile Don Fisher seems to deliver along with a tender view of the transformations in life- death, aging, heartbreak, which are best described in his words as "a lovely chaos."

-Jamie Houghton, author of Burn Site in Bloom (2017) and Hero (2020), Musehick Publications