Jason Heroux : My Life as a Notebook (book trailer,

Kingston poet Jason Heroux has produced a book trailer for his latest above/ground press chapbook, My Life as a Notebook (2025)! Either watch it above, or catch it as part of the YouTube channel, which also includes over one hundred videos as part of the virtual reading series via periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics.

some author activity: Archer, Barwin, Spinosa, Dachsel, Betts, MacEachern + Vitkauskas,

Sacha Archer has some visual work up at Arnold McBay's mOvement, as does Gary Barwin, once or twice, and Dani Spinosa; Marita Dachsel has a poem up in the "Tuesday poem" series; Gregory Betts is interviewed at The Ethically Immoral Podcast; Jessi MacEachern is featured in the Canadian Poets Series over at Peripety and/or Tronies; and Lina Ramona Vitkauskas is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey.

new from above/ground press: Premières Poésies by Eudore Évanturel (1878), by Jamie Sharpe

Premières Poésies by Eudore Évanturel (1878)
Distillated into English by Jamie Sharpe
$6

Pastel

Strokes of dawn silhouette
her figure. Soft light. Colors
brush her skin. She breathes
in the palette of old ends
and new beginnings.


Translator's Preface

When I first encountered the poetry of Eudore Évanturel, I felt I’d stumbled across a misplaced heirloom: a finely etched reliquary of longing, wit, and restraint buried under a century of national amnesia. His images, though rooted in nineteenth-century Quebec, gleamed with modern edges.

My approach to this translation was not archival but sympathetic, even irreverent. I have rendered Évanturel’s French into a succinct English cadence not for fashion’s sake, but to let the poems exist without the velvet rope and museum glass. It is Évanturel in a world where existence is not an extended dance but a frequency, a beat. I hope I tapped into it, however briefly. 

If these poems feel fresh, it’s because they always were. We simply forgot.

Jamie Sharpe (July 11th, 2025)

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
September 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Jamie Sharpe is the author of five previous poetry collections, the most recent of which is Get Well Soon. His next (and last) book, We, a novel-in-verse annexed from Russia, is forthcoming from ECW Press. He lives in Comox.

Eudore Évanturel (1852-1919) published one book of poetry, Premier Poésies, which was sparsely but poorly reviewed. Literary doors closed to him. He became moribund. Lost his job. Lost his friends. Basically: a paragon of the Canadian poet.

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Gwen Aube's pulp necrosis (2025) is reviewed at Discordia Review

Whoever runs Discordia Review, presumably, was good enough to provide a first review of Gwen Aube's pulp necrosis (2025). Thanks so much! You can read the original post here. As the rather hefty review includes, to begin:

Gwen Aube is a plucky upstart. You don’t generally hear much talk about a poet’s “pluck” in more formal reviews. Reviewers love to say things like, “the poet brings a radical softness to spaces of violence that leavens their inherently traumatic qualities” or “the poet has a writing practice attuned to affect, absurdity, and community struggle” or whatever. If labouring under a strict wordcount, they might settle for simply calling the poet “brave.” But the “pluck” of Aube’s poetry—that endearing, good-humoured courage of the small carrying on in the shadow of long odds—is a welcome tonic in these times of paralysis and dread. And look, I know plucky is an adjective usually reserved for like, a stocky mutt that wins the tricounty openweight barking contest or whatever, but I promise it isn’t a way for me to say, “Aube technically sucks but in a charming way.” She’s good.

new from above/ground press: Voices from Planet X ~ speculative verse from the THOTJBAP series, by Renée Sarojini Saklikar

Voices from Planet X
~ speculative verse from the THOTJBAP series 
Renée Sarojini Saklikar
$6

The Weather 

Northeast winds stripped bare branches; 
great limbs felled, fir to oak, linden to strange
hybrids, contraband imports 
           Ficus benghalensis whispered
indentured migrants, reserve army of labour
sold to work the edges of Perimeter
Winter Portal damaged: change a whipsaw,
once gaping wide, now, minuscule, 
then again huge, blasted, ice pellets strewn
snow banks eight fathoms deep, lakes and rivers, 
temperatures below, below, below, then sudden
change to above, ice cracks, ferocious bellows, 
chunks gaping, the roar of ice water, jade green
liquid pushing slabs below. Toss, tumble unseen.

We, shipped in, transported, rendered, contracted
we to work the change, supply lines jammed;
rumble-shake, quiet, quiet, rumble shake—
change, a portal, now minuscule; then snap!
Gaping wide, below, below,  core splitting fissures
above, the sky, thinned, ozone wearing off
           earth, shrugging us off:
temperatures below, below, below, then above,
once gaping wide, now, minuscule, earth’s push,
pulled, pulling against the ice fast melting— 

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
September 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Renée Sarojini Saklikar is the author of five books, including the award-winning Children of Air India and Listening to the Bees. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in literary magazines and anthologies, including Exile Editions, Chatelaine, The Capilano Review, and Pulp Literature. She was Poet Laureate for the City of Surrey (2015-2018), co-founded Lunch Poems at SFU, and teaches Creative Writing at Douglas College. Bramah’s Discovery is the third volume of her epic fantasy in verse series, THOTJBAP. She lives in East Vancouver. 

This is Saklikar’s third above/ground press poetry title, after After the Battle of Kingsway, the bees— (2016; second printing, 2019) and from The Book of Bramah (2019).

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: Barwin, Donato, Smiley, dueck, Mc Donnell + Boyle,

Gary Barwin is interviewed by Selena Mercuri as part of the substack Coffee Dates with Authors; Joseph Donato is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Conal Smiley has a poem in the "Tuesday poem" series; nathan dueck offers a lecture in Cranbrook, British Columbia on September 24 as part of COTR's Museia Lecture series, titled 'Jesus vs Superman'; Conor Mc Donnell is interviewed by Sheelagh Caygill for On Creative Writing; and Frances Boyle has a new poem online at Anacapa Review.

new from above/ground press: My Life as a Notebook, by Jason Heroux

My Life as a Notebook
Jason Heroux
$6

1.    I am speaking now from a Dollar Store within a mall in Kingston, Ontario where I live a quiet, simple life as a notebook. 100 pages. College ruled. White paper. 3-hole punched. Originally manufactured by ACCO Brands in Brooklyn, New York, USA, I currently reside in the stationary aisle among a diverse range of notebooks. Surrounded by pens, erasers, liquid paper bottles, markers, stickers, other school supplies. I’ve spent years here. Saw a lot of nearby products grow old, lose their abilities, expire, get tossed aside. Their spirits are still on the shelves. Somehow I never expired. Where’s my spirit?

2.    Business is quiet. There seems to be less and less customers these days. A rumour is circulating that the mall is scheduled to shut down, get demolished. A spider overheard the property manager talking on the phone to his brother. “It’s happening.” Yesterday two ghosts wandered along the aisle. The child ghost raised a hand and pointed at me. “A note boat.” The mother ghost laughed, and corrected the child. “No, it’s called a notebook.” But I prefer the term note-boat over notebook. I am a vessel, far off at sea, carrying my blank pages to the nearest shore. 

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
as the thirty-first title in above/ground’s prose/naut imprint
September 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Jason Heroux is a person of some sort, although this has yet to be verified.

This is Heroux's third above/ground press chapbook, after Something or Other (2023) and A Further Introduction to Bingo, with Dag T. Straumsvåg (2024).

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: Saklikar, Eleftherion, Tierney, Cook, Campos, Niespodziany + Rogal,

Renée Sarojini Saklikar is interviewed by The British Columbia Review; Melissa Eleftherion, Orchid Tierney, Juliet Cook, Isabel Sobral Campos and Benjamin Niespodziany all have work up in the new issue of Action, Spectacle; and Stan Rogal has three poems up at The Temz Review.

new from above/ground press: What's Left, by Ken Norris

What's Left
Ken Norris
$6

FALLEN ANGELS

Desecration. Wide-eyed
with failing wonder.

The fallen angels lift
themselves up, dust

themselves off. The war
in Heaven took no prisoners.

It’s just exile again,
with every dawn a new

beginning. I can’t muster
the words I write into battle,

can’t tilt the images any longer.
I’m open to the sky,

as always. In a world
of defeated things.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
September 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Cover Image and Lettering: Marlene Konyves

Ken Norris was born in New York City in 1951. He came to Canada in the early 1970s, to escape Nixon-era America and to pursue his graduate education. He completed an M.A. at Concordia University and a PhD in Canadian Literature at McGill University. He became a Canadian citizen in 1985. Norris is Professor Emeritus at the University of Maine, where he taught Canadian Literature and Creative Writing for thirty-three years. He currently resides in Toronto.

This is Ken Norris’ thirteenth above/ground press chapbook, after Windward – St. Lucia Poems (1995), The Commentaries (1999), Songs For Isabella (2000), Green Wind (2010), Looking Into It (2011), Hong Kong Blues (2019), Hawaiian Sunrise (2021), Stray Dog Café (2021), The Traveling Wilburys Collection (2021), False Narratives (2022), Echoes (2023) and Broken River (2024).

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: Vitkauskas, van Vliet, Betts, Beaulieu, Kemp, Smith, Barwin + Jarvis,

did you know that Lina Ramona Vitkauskas has a substack? ; Robert van Vliet answers the "12 or 20 questions"; Gregory Betts is a guest on Richard Capener's Morgiana Podcast/substack, where I had clearly missed that Derek Beaulieu had also been a guest, as had Penn Kemp; some new Steven Ross Smith collaborations are now up at bandcamp; Gary Barwin has a new visual poem up at Asemana Magazine; and Jenna Jarvis has new work up at Discordia Review.

new from above/ground press: Against Perfectionism & Other Poems, by Jon Cone

Against Perfectionism
& other poems 
JON CONE
$6

HINGE 

Once upon
a time 

poetry told 
us something. 

It was a 
map, an eyeglass.

The name 
of the black cat

on the front 
porch is Hydra. 

Hydra is the 
name

of the black cat
on the front porch.  

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
September 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Jon Cone is a Canadian poet, editor, and writer who lives in Iowa City. He grew up in Richmond Hill, Ontario, attended University of Western Ontario, in London, where he majored in English and Philosophy. He holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Recent publications include New Year Begun (Subpress Editions: Brooklyn, NY, 2022); Liminal: Shadow Agent, pts 1 and 2 (Greying Ghost, Salem, MA, 2022); An Ice Cream Truck Stalled at the Bottom of the World: a collection of plays/written with Rauan Klassnik (Plays Inverse, Pittsburgh, PA 2020); Cold House (espresso, Toronto, ON, 2017).  His recent poetry has appeared in the journals ant5 (Eugene, OR) and Scant (Manchester, UK).  His recent reviews have appeared in Rain Taxi (Minneapolis, MN). For eight years he edited the international literary review World Letter (Iowa City, 1991-1999).

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: Notley, Berlatsky, Betts, Ross + Chang-Richardson,

Joyelle McSweeney writes on the late Alice Notley, as does Nick Sturm; Noah Berlatsky writes his engagements with the New York School of Poets over at Splice Today; Gregory Betts is interviewed "on literary community and collaboration, and AI's influences on writing" over at Creative Writing; Eva H.D. reads a poem by Stuart Ross; and Ellen Chang-Richardson is in podcast conversation with Rachel Thompson at Lit Mag Love.

new from above/ground press: The Last Man, by Ben Ladouceur

The Last Man
Ben Ladouceur
$6

Before

Mothers raised children like beets from the ground.
It was always quiet and appropriate to cry.
Cain groped his brother’s blood red bones

and said the first word ever, which was Oops. Stones spoke.
Crowds gathered. Sleep came easily. Men sold gold. A fisher
ate a lobster and went Oh my goodness, not bad. Goodness

being thought of as a thing you could hold
and call yours, how the wick holds the light and says Wick.
How that light holds the hot out in every direction

saying Light. It was really windy. People died younger.
A young king employed a swift look to encourage
his guy on the side to go back to sleep. The bright was just

a dawn, he said, like any dawn. The sigh the asleep
man released had an oxygen atom in common
with every breath that you have ever drawn.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
September 2025
to mark the occasion of Ladouceur's appointment as Writer-in-Residence for the Winter 2026 semester, Department of English, University of Ottawa
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Ben Ladouceur has received the Thomas Morton for Fiction, the National Magazine Award (Gold) for Poetry, the Archibald Lampman Award, the Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize, the Gerald Lampert Memorial Prize, the Earle Birney Prize, and a writer’s residency at the Al Purdy A-Frame. He is the author of the novel I Remember Lights (2025), the poetry collections Otter (2015) and Mad Long Emotion (2019), and nine previous chapbooks, including the above/ground press title Lime Kiln Quay Road (2011) which was nominated for the bpNichol Chapbook Award. He lives in Ottawa.

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com