Picture Books I

For 32 years, my wife, Barbara Fisher, has worked with me to realize Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream. She’s read through the many submissions by students, unrecognized writers and accomplished poets. She hand printed covers and inserts on her Kelsey letter press and our leased photocopiers. She has chosen art and created collages that have accompanied the poems on the pages. She has done “the scud work as well as the more interesting stuff.” And jokes that she won’t wear nail polish because her “fingertips are engrained with black printer’s ink.”

In the second issue of the NYS Waterways Project (7/21/79), Barbara used two 19th century drawings as fillers: "floating his tricycle" and "the speaker's free platform."

NYS Waterways Project - 1979 2

A year later (7/26/80),

Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 1 No 3

she presented readers with a collage from her children’s book, “Link Ups".

By July, 1984, we’d settled into what has become Waterways consistent format (7x4.25),

Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol. 5 No. 7

Barbara was still printing the cover by hand on her letterpress, typesetting the issue on an IBM Selectric typewriter, adding illustrations to the title page, and accompanying the poems with relevent pictures. By July of 1987, we were using a two tone printer and Barbara was putting illustrations on almost every page.