new from above/ground press: & look there goes a sparrow transplanting soil by Emily Carr

& look there goes a sparrow transplanting soil

Emily Carr

$4

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
in an edition of 200 copies, December 2009
add $1 for postage (outside Canada, add $2 & in American currency)
with cheques to rob mclennan, c/o 858 Somerset Street West, main floor,
Ottawa Ontario Canada K1R 6R7
2010 subscriptions now available

Emily Carr is writing to loot to hew & Eden, a book of poetry that explores happiness from feminist & ecocritical perspectives. In 2010, directions for flying is forthcoming from Furniture Press & 13 ways of happily: books 1 & 2 is forthcoming from Parlor Press. Emily has received fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center & the Jack Kerouac House. Her poetry has appeared most recently in Gargoyle, Margie, Caketrain, ISLE, Fiddlehead & The Antigonish.

Cover image by kevin mcpherson eckhoff

new from above/ground press: Poems for Lainna by rob mclennan

Poems for Lainna

by rob mclennan

$4

love is an impossible narrative

there are too many blue cars in this province.

too often beer commercials on television

are the last stop of wisdom. at the hands of the swarm,

came thus but another swarm. a plethora of bees.

if a murder of crows, why not just a pint, then, of poets?

most contemporary horror films

are but scenes of sudden surprise.

emus run wild through the streets of Edmonton.

someone just let them go.

if this is sinful excess, then let it be sinful.

let it be everything it need be then multiplied.

my three fingers that elevator on Whyte

that went nowhere until

we pushed back the button.

this is a true story.

love is a fading photograph

with newer pictures laid overtop.

there are too many blue cars in this province.

cars you can count on the fingers of one hand

coloured peach, lime, orange. the cupboards are bare.

I am caught up with the smooth skin

of an impossible country.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press

in an edition of 200 copies, December 2009

add $1 for postage (outside Canada, add $2 & in American currency)

with cheques payable to rob mclennan, c/o 858 Somerset Street West, main floor

Ottawa Ontario Canada K1R 6R7

2010 subscriptions now available

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa. The author of some twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles are the poetry collections Gifts (Talonbooks, 2009), a compact of words (Salmon Publishing, Ireland, 2009), kate street (Moira, Chicago Il, 2009) and wild horses (University of Alberta Press, 2010), as well as a second novel, missing persons (The Mercury Press, 2009). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Jennifer Mulligan), seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry & poetics (ottawater.com/seventeenseconds), The Garneau Review (ottawater.com/garneaureview) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater (ottawater.com). He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and currently divides his time between Ottawa and Toronto. He regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com

above/ground press at the toronto small press book fair

THE TORONTO SMALL PRESS BOOK FAIR AT THE GLADSTONE HOTEL, DECEMBER 12TH, 2009

Because the Toronto Reference Library is having construction work done this fall, we're moving to the fabulous GLADSTONE HOTEL on Queen Street West for this season's Toronto Small Press Book Fair. We're really excited about the location, and we're thrilled to announce the new December date—perfect for holiday shopping, right in the middle of the festive season.

DATE: Saturday, December 12th. (Readers and performers including rob mclennan at 1:30pm on-site)

TIME: 10 am-5 pm (presses should be on-site by 9:30 at the latest—doors open at 9 am)

ADDRESS: 1214 Queen Street West, Toronto M6J 1J6
(Directions: Queen Street West & Gladstone (near Dufferin). Some street parking, some parking in front of Woolfit's on Queen. Nearest paid parking lot: Queen & O'Hara. Public Transit: TTC Queen Streetcar (the stop is right in front of the Gladstone Hotel!) (Facilities for people with disabilities)

2 new chapbooks by above/ground press

Veralum
by Phil Hall
$4

Our / Are Carried Invisibles
by Roland Prevost
$4

publisht in Ottawa by above/ground press. a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy. To order, add $1 for postage, & in Canadian currency; if sending from outside Canada, send in American, payable to rob mclennan, c/o 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1R 6R7; above/ground press subscribers receive (honest!) a complimentary copy; calendar year subscriptions available for $40, & include chapbooks, broadsides, STANZAS magazine & The Peter F. Yacht Club.

Roland Prevost recieved the 2006 John Newlove Poetry Award (judge: Erin Mouré). His poetry has been published in two previous chapbooks: Metafizz, Bywords, 2007; Dragon Verses, Dusty Owl , 2009. He has also appeared in “Ottawater 3.0”, and “Ottawater 5.0”, above/ground press, Variations Art Zine, Bywords Quarterly Journal, Peter F. Yacht Club, Angel House Press, among others. He was the managing editor of poetics.ca for two years, and currently acts as the managing editor for 17 seconds, an online journal of poetry & poetics. Late at night, he loves to look at the deep sky through his various telescopes.

Phil Hall was born in 1953 & raised on farms in the Kawarthas region of Ontario. He attended the University of Windsor in the 70s, where he received an MA in English & Creative Writing. His first book, Eighteen Poems, was published in Mexico City in 1973. Since then he has published 13 other books of poems, 4 chapbooks, & a cassette of labour songs. He is also a publisher of broadsides & chapbooks under his Flat Singles Press imprint. In the early 80s he was a member of The Vancouver Industrial Writers’ Union. In the early 90s he was Literary Editor at This Magazine, & also edited a shortlived literary journal called Don’t Quit Yr Day-Job.Among his titles are: Homes (1979), Old Enemy Juice (1988), The Unsaid (1992), & Hearthedral—A Folk-Hermetic (1996). Trouble Sleeping (2000) was nominated for the Governor General’s Award for poetry. In 2005, Brick Books (celebrating 20 years as Hall’s publisher) brought out An Oak Hunch, which was nominated for the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2006. Hall has taught writing & literature at the Kootenay School of Writing, York University, Ryerson Polytechnical University, & many colleges.He has been poet-in-residence at the University of Western Ontario, the Sage Hill Writing Experience (Sask.), The Berton House in Dawson City, Yukon, & elsewhere. In 2007, Book Thug published Hall’s new long poem, White Porcupine, & also issue a revised second edition of his essay/poem, The Bad Sequence. Over the years, Hall has collected two full decks of random playing cards from the streets, numerous albums of found photographs, & too many boxes of paper ephemera. He calls all this junk “The Pedestrian Archives.” He is learning to play clawhammer banjo.

a yacht club, an anniversary!

The Peter F. Yacht Club #13, now available!

the above/ground press sweet sixteen; anniversary party & launch!

Amanda Earl on Catherine Owen (via Lemonhound)

Ottawa poet, editor and publisher Amanda Earl blogged on Edmonton poet Catherine Owen's chapbook Fyre (above/ground press, 2008), originally published as a chapbook, and republished online as a free, downloadable pdf publication, all part of the above/ground press ALBERTA SERIES.

a second event of out-of-towners (mostly)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
doors 7pm, reading 7:30pm

The Carleton Tavern (upstairs),
223 Armstrong (at Parkdale)

Friday, May 29, 2009

with readings by:

Elizabeth Bachinsky (Vancouver)
Matt Rader (Vancouver)
Wanda O'Connor (Montreal)
& Marcus McCann (Ottawa)

Elizabeth Bachinsky is the author of three collections of poetry, Curio (BookThug, 2005), Home of Sudden Service (Nightwood, 2006), and God of Missed Connections (Nightwood, 2009). Her work was nominated for the Governor General's Award for Poetry in 2006 and the Bronwen Wallace Award in 2004 and has appeared in literary journals, anthologies, and on film in Canada, the United States, France, Ireland, England, and China. She is an instructor of creative writing at Douglas College in New Westminster where she is Poetry Editor for Event magazine. She lives in Vancouver.

Matt Rader is the author of two books of poems: Miraculous Hours (2005) and Living Things (2008). His poems, stories, and non-fiction have appeared in journals and anthologies across North America, Australia, and Europe and have been nominated for numerous awards including the Gerald Lampert Award, the Journey Prize, and two Pushcart Prizes. He is an instructor of creative writing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Richmond, BC. He lives in Vancouver.

Wanda O'Connor once embraced a fond affection for trap shooting. She's been published in three countries and once won a CBC poetry contest about the public service. She has a degree in Creative Writing and Classics from Concordia in Montreal and used to play punk guitar. She now tends tomatoes instead of children.

Marcus McCann is the editor of Ottawa’s gay and lesbian newspaper. He's a host of CKCU's Literary Landscapes and the organizer of both the Transgress festival and the Naughty Thoughts Book Club. After six chapbooks, Soft Where (Chaudiere Books, 2009) is his first full-length collection. http://www.marcusmccann.com/.