This is the fourteenth
in a series of short essays/reminiscences by a variety of authors and friends
of the press to help mark the quarter century mark of above/ground. See links to the whole series here.
Out of the
blue, rob mclennan queries whether he could publish a second chap of mine with
above / ground press. Let’s put out the
work, see how it flies, comes his email. A constant current of activity out
of Ottawa, asking, publishing, promoting: what are you up to, what’s new, what
have you published, updating the above / ground blog for all of his many
published poets, following their work, getting the word out. This is the
singular joy of above / ground, of perhaps the most industrious publisher in
the poetry business—the gifts of appreciation, of shared endeavor in poetry, of
an open and generous spirit.
At above /
ground, one finds oneself in-the-midst of an unfolding “conversation” with
poets from across Canada, the United States, and beyond. New discoveries—from
N.W. Lea, “everything is second-hand, a pedestrian/ bargain. Rummage// in the pitch/ toque” to Rachel Mindell, “Sometimes the only
sane answer/ to a senseless world is paranoia./ New clothes, mascara. A wig
maybe”; and familiar loves, Alice Notely’s new Undo, "The century or year or night one might bloom a miracle/
A night-blooming cereus white this could heal you/ Or decorate the new abyss
turn the year backwards”—all gathered in a single sweep through above /ground
press. Twenty-five years along, rob’s chapbook press delight for its
invitations, inclusions, and ambitious reach. How does rob do it all? Chapbooks
of both poems and short essays, perfect-bound books, magazines, blogs, Dusie’s
poem-a-week, a reading series, book reviews, at least two interview series. He
gives us a sense of that creative tumult in his own new chap above / ground
chap, snow day:
Anna Gurton-Wachter responds to my email. Monty Reid responds to my email. Nikki Sheppy responds to my email. Stephen Brockwell responds to my email. Neil Flowers responds to my email. Pearl Pirie responds to my email. David O’Meara responds to my email. Annick MacAskill responds to my email. Christine McNair responds to my email. Sarah Burgoyne responds to my email. Shazia Hafiz Ramji responds to my email. Christine McNair responds to my email. natalie hanna responds to my email. Christine McNair responds to my email. Christine McNair responds to my email. Christine McNair responds to my email. Christine McNair responds to my email.
Ian Williams responds to a photograph of my home office: “Don’t you feel perpetually overwhelmed?”
“I saw the photo of your writing desk and wanted to close the door.”
rob’s query to
me this time round came in the midst of finalizing a manuscript I had been
working on for 10 years, as well as planning for a reading at the New Orleans
poetry festival. Could he have the chap ready by then? Of course, he could and
did, coastal geographies, an excerpt
from my forthcoming Ark Hive: a memoir of
South Louisiana (The Operating System, 2019)—bringing the work home to the
ground which inspirited it. How lucky to find that email in my inbox, how lucky
to be asked for work, how many pleasures and encounters along the way. Gifts
and gratitude from/to all the poets, and, most of all, to that “hardest working
man in po-biz”, rob mclennan.
Marthe Reed has
published five books: Nights Reading (Lavender Ink, 2014); Pleth,
with j hastain (Unlikely Books, 2013); (em)bodied bliss (Moria Books,
2013); Gaze (Black Radish Books, 2010); Tender Box, A Wunderkammer
(Lavender Ink, 2007). A sixth collection, ARK HIVE will be published by
The Operating System (2019). The author of six chapbooks, her collaborative
chapbook thrown, text by j hastain with Reed's collages, won the 2013 Smoking
Glue Gun contest (2016). Her poetry has been published in BAX2014, New
American Writing, Golden Handcuffs Review, Entropy, New
Orleans Review, Jacket2, Fairy Tale Review, Exquisite
Corpse, The Volta, and The Offending Adam, among others. Desperation:
A Glossary for Writing in the Anthropocene, co-edited with Linda Russo,
will be published by Wesleyan University Press in 2018. Reed is co-publisher
and managing editor for Black Radish Books and lives in Syracuse, NY.
Marthe Reed is the author of two above/ground press
titles, including After Swann (2013), and coastal
geometries, out later this month.
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