new from above/ground press: DIDIKUY, by Guy Birchard

DIDIKUY
Guy Birchard
$6

The Didikuy Renders Each Her Moment

A. Heeney, who does not idealize pretty,
for whom 'pretty' has ever been no goal,
for whom beauty excels, as she pledges
her torch song to extol, favors, expressly, Light.

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

Guy Birchard's most recent title is MOST BY BOOKS (Symple Persone Press, 2023).

This is Birchard’s third chapbook with above/ground press, after VALEDICTIONS (2019) and MONTCORBIER (2020).

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

new from above/ground press: SLOPTIMISM of the WILL, by MLA Chernoff

SLOPTIMISM of the WILL
MLA Chernoff
$6

Speech Difficulty
When I think of you, I think of me––
how clumsily my absence snogs 
your presence, how a pillar of salt 
squirms where my tongue used to be, 
how a bespoke dictionary abruptly 
replaces itself on your shelf, as
the room undresses unfit mirrors
revealing the wake a moon who yields 
its time and fucks off into the hollering
cloud beds we crafted upon the rust of golems.

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

Moral: MLA Chernoff (@sickass_sicko) is a slick, sick, and sappy writer based out of Toronto. Their debut poetry collection, [SQUELCH PROCEDURES], was released by Gordon Hill Press in 2021 to very little acclaim. Oh well! They are the author of seven poetry chapbooks, including TERSE THIRSTY, I'M LIKE THE GREAT GRANDCHILD OF MARX & COCA-COLA (BUT NON-BINEY), and ESTRO FLUNKY. Get it through your thick and juicy skull: they will never stop. MLA’s work has been featured in numerous journals, such as PRISM International, The Ex-Puritan, and Peach Mag. Their poetry was longlisted for the 2024 Austin Clarke Prize in Literary Excellence. MLA has won no awards, but not for lack of trying. Oh well! Get in touch at mlachernoff.com.

Sincerely and with kind regards,
Your humble and obedient servant,

MLA Chernoff

This is Chernoff’s third above/ground press title, after SCRIED FUNDAMENTS (2022) and ESTRO FLUNKY: FIELD NOTES (2023).

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

this weekend! above/ground press in toronto at the tifa small press fair + meet the presses' indie lit market,

In case you are around, I'll be (along with a mound of above/ground press titles + my new poetry title, the book of sentences) participating in two different small press fairs this weekend in Toronto:

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1ST: Toronto International Festival of Authors SMALL PRESS FAIR, 10am-5pm, Victoria College https://festivalofauthors.ca/event/small-press-fair-2025/

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2ND: Meet the Presses INDIE LIT MARKET, noon to 4pm, Cecil Centre, 58 Cecil Street, https://www.instagram.com/p/DN6d0WDDvUo/?hl=en

can you believe above/ground press is more than three decades old? new and forthcoming by russell carisse, Kevin Spenst, Lillian Nećakov, Jill Stengel, Cary Fagan and Rebecca Comay, Guy Birchard, Benjamin Niespodziany, Buck Downs, Jeremy Luke Hill, Mrityunjay Mohan, Kate Siklosi, Charlotte Jung and Johannes S.H. Bjerg, Eudore Évanturel (trans. by Jamie Sharpe, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Jason Heroux, Ken Norris, Jon Cone, Ben Ladouceur, Yaxkin Melchy (trans. by Ryan Greene, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Michael Sikkema, Laynie Browne, Nada Gordon, Stuart Ross, Ellen Chang-Richardson etc etc etc https://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/

and i hear my new poetry title is amazing: https://press.ucalgary.ca/books/9781773856483/

drop by if you are able!

some author activity: McElroy, Thomas, Burgoyne, Norris, Bolster, Swensen + eckhoff,

Gil McElroy has some new work in long con magazine, as does Hugh Thomas and even Sarah Burgoyne, offering her thoughts on the work of Gail Scott; part four of Ken Norris' memoir, "Confessions of a True Believer," is now online; Stephanie Bolster answers questions over at On Creative Writing; Cole Swensen has some work up at Big Other; and kevin mcpherson eckhoff has started to publish fiction.

new from above/ground press: Circling the Black Sun, by Lance La Rocque

Circling the Black Sun
Lance La Rocque
$6

Charlatan

Howl without
The as if
They exist

Scrolling timeless light

Influencers louder
Than the antique moon
Hanging
Agape

LOL

I sense the earth move
I think—
Crumbling
As if 
Crushed

A hard species
These giddy rich
Get off
Will last a little longer

The starstruck mobs
Eyes following
Their as if
Dangling over the void

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

Lance La Rocque lives in Wolfville, NS, with Lisa—and sometimes Emily and Max. He teaches “The Writer and Nature” and “Experimental Poetry” at Acadia University. His work has appeared in Hava Lehaba, The Northern Testicle Review, and Industrial Sabotage. He was included in the anthology Surreal Estate: 13 Poets Under the Influence, and has published a chapbook, Glitch (above/ground press), and a poetry collection, Vermin (BookHug).

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: Boyle, Carr, Johnson, Mc Donnell + mclennan,

Frances Boyle has new work up at talking about strawberries all of the time; Julie Carr is interviewed over at Tupelo Quarterly; Chris Johnson has a poem in the "Tuesday poem" series; Conor Mc Donnell has an essay up at The Woodlot, as does rob mclennan, who also offers an essay on his new poetry manuscript-in-progress, a poem from such is now up at minor literature[s].

new from above/ground press: That H uman E ffluence A nd P lastic, by russell carisse

That H uman E ffluence A nd P lastic
russell carisse
$6

§1.078

Does your recombine-harvester’s entropy drive knock under stress? Are you able to hear the subtle differences in trash density? Have you even considered harmonic relativity? If not, then you’re missing what looks to be the next Water Rush, but you can still act if you act now! The HEAP can proto-fit your’s, and all we ask is that you preform your operations in accordance with our corporate philosophy: it’s always about the process, and may your’s complicate the process infinitely. Proto-fit now!

§1.934

Summer awoke in yesterday’s clothes, sweaty from fever induced dreams. After struggling with the soaked clothes, it was the usual swish into the neé 3003 model water extractor’s hopper. The inefficiency of changing burned the much needed time to do nothing. Doing nothing burned in the back of their mind, while their calculated motions worked for sufficient gains. New clothes from the receptacle unwrapped, with less struggle put on muttering,”I’ll get that new model yet, then you'll see me here!”

§1.009

What began before The Great Coagulation as a modest family septic-tank company, Human Effluents And Plastic (HEAP), has become the only name of trust. If it wasn’t for Sum deGuy’s micro-water extraction technique, we would be distilling landfill juice, for our water needs to this day. With discovery that plastic harbours microscopic amounts water, Sum began a patented process to squeeze the water out before landfill. A most complicated process employing the largest supply chains employing us all.

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

russell carisse is currently living on unceded Wolastoqiyik/Mi’kmaw territory in New Brunswick. Here they have resettled from Tkaronto (Treaty 13) to an off-grid trailer in the woods, with their family of people and animals, to grow food and practice other forms of underconsumption. Author of five chapbooks, their work forthcoming or in, ARC Poetry, Queen’s Quarterly, The Temz Review, Touch the Donkey, also online. Website: russellcarisse.carrd.co Mastodon: @russellcarisse@writing.exchange Bluesky: @russellcarisse.bsky.social

This is carisse's fourth title through above/ground press, after English Garden Bondage (2022), In The Margins. . . . . .of french translations found and remixed by russell carisse (2024) and poetry and labour / is concrete (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

Cristalle Smith reviews Melissa Spohr Weiss' Motion & Force (2022) via Instagram,

Cristalle Smith was good enough to provide a first review of Melissa Spohr Weiss' Motion & Force (2022) via Instagram. Thanks so much! You can read the original post here. As she writes:

Motion & Force
Melissa Spohr Weiss
@sonnets_and_sloths

above/ground press 2022
@rob_mclennan_writer

Form frees noise, more than cacophony, in Melissa Spohr Weiss’s Motion & Force. Nip utterance builds alliteration into terse experiences that defy narrativizing: “Can a nature-eater earn / tenure? Can a cute crane // taunt a recent teen?” (“Utterance”). Listen. “O, Calypso! I hold paid holidays,” an unknown speaker cries in “Physical Body” while “Holy playboy ladys abolish / cops.” Find sense in pattern, repetition, an alphabet soup of rules to count to ten. Tin cans spill tomato broth and squishy noodles.

Is that an oboe boo floating in? A clarinet reed? Read the lines down, then up, then down again: “A rat entered yer rented / tavern. Ate yer nerve” (“Everyday Event”). Tercets with enjambment. Some kind of sonnet(not?) That’s okay, “An erect centaur can’t eat / true tuna” (“Utterance”). Did you have a dream(nightmare) you can’t remember? But still hear the sounds? Pluck string taut and mince meaning-acrostic-acoustic-an office, “O conifer comet!” (“Motion & Force”). Some poetry makes sense sounds in pilfering a rabbit tart.

Get in, losers. We are blasting this anthem until 5:00 AM.

John Levy wins the 2025 Shelley Memorial Award!

In case you hadn't heard, Arizona poet (and above/ground press author) John Levy has won the 2025 Shelley Memorial Award, presented by the Poetry Society of America and selected by Matthew Zapruder! Congratulations! Now, I hadn't heard of this thing either, but apparently it was established from the will of a Mary P. Sears to be "given to a living American poet selected with reference to genius and need," and named after poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (of course). Presented annually since 1930, prior winners include E.E. Cummings, Robinson Jeffers, Anne Sexton, Ruth Stone, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Creeley, Muriel Rukeyser, Jean Valentine, Alice Notley (another above/ground press author), Joyelle McSweeney, George Stanley (another above/ground press author), Rick Barot, Gillian Conoley, Evie Shockley, Shin Yu Pai and Arthur Sze [a full list of winners can be found here].

There are still copies, of course, of Levy's above/ground press title To Assemble an Absence (2024). Check out Levy's full bio (a new book forthcoming, by the way), a hefty "Judge's Citation" by Zapruder and a few Levy poems over at the Poetry Society of America link. Or, as Zapruder writes:

It’s a lucky joy to stumble across a poet and fall in love with their work. What a gift. When it happens, I always want to reach out and tell all my poet friends the good news. Look at all these new (to us) poems we get to read! When a student of mine, the poet Robyn Schelenz, sent me a few of John Levy’s poems, I found them to be so direct and open, honest, precise, generous, funny, kind, and for lack of a better word, natural, that I could not wait to read more, and to tell everyone I knew about them. It felt to me like what I am always searching for, often desperately, in poetry: the language totally unforced, but also casually precise and alive, as if some kind of precious thinking is happening right in front of me. Reading Levy’s poems felt, yes, a bit like coming across someone who had read and maybe even known the poets of the New York School, and who had absorbed their intelligence and joy and liberated way of moving around a poem, but without their sometimes exhaustingly arch knowingness. There is a youthful innocence to Levy’s poems, the kind of innocence you only truly achieve when you have been around a while, and know that as Rilke said, the way to be a poet is to act like it’s the first time not just you, but anyone, has seen anything. I think of what the (then young) Dylan sang: I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now. Combined with the dismayed comedy and genuine sorrow of a person who has had the privilege and misfortune to reside a while on earth, the poems feel like they are truly wise. I wonder if he, like me, also loves the philosopher poets of Eastern and Central Europe, and the attentive naturalists of the Tang. But other than all the poets and others he mentions in his poems, I actually have no idea really what John Levy reads or loves. I just know his poems bring me aforementioned joy, so rare these days. I am so grateful I was asked to judge this important prize from the Poetry Society, honoring a mid-career poet, whatever that is. As far as I am concerned, John Levy, whom I have never met, is one, for he must have been there for quite a while without me knowing, and he sure seems like he still has a lot to say. I am so happy I get to share his work with you all. I hope, and suspect, that you will get as much pleasure out of John Levy’s poetry as I do.

Peter Jaeger is on the 2025 Nelson Ball Prize long list! (along w Stebner, Robinson, Christakos etc

Congratulations to the entire 2025 Nelson Ball Prize long list! Naturally, it is very exciting to see an above/ground press title on the list, by Canadian poet Peter Jaeger, as well as titles by above/ground press authors Margaret Christakos (author of the 2019 title Retreat Diary 2019), Ben Robinson (author of three above/ground press titles, most recently the 2023 title Between the Lakes) and Kevin Stebner (author of the 2023 title AGALMA). In case you aren't aware:

The Nelson Ball Prize, worth $1,000, is awarded annually to a Canadian poet for a published work that features 'poetry of observation.' * The judges this year are James McDonald and Beverley Daurio. Stay tuned for the Short List, and then the announcement of the winning publication.

Here's the full list of longlisted titles:

Margaret Christakos, That Audible Slippage (University of Alberta Press)
Jeremy Clarke, Stone Hours (Rufus Books)
Peter Jaeger, Selected Memoirs (above/ground press)
Dawn Macdonald, Northerny (University of Alberta Press)
Michael Ondaatje, A Year of Last Things (McClelland & Stewart)
Ben Robinson, As Is (ARP Books)
Angeline Schellenberg, Mondegreen Riffs (At Bay Press)
Kevin Stebner, Inherent (Assembly Press)
Michael Trussler, 10:10 (Icehouse Poetry)
Matthew Walsh, Terrarium (Icehouse Poetry)

new from above/ground press: a nest, a burrow, a lea stone, by Jeremy Luke Hill

a nest, a burrow, a lea stone
Jeremy Luke Hill
$6

The Body as Home and World

Many traditional cultures have understood the body, the home, and the world to be figures for one another, where, for example, the ribs of the chest mean the beams of the house mean the arch of the sky. 

We are ever more precisely mapped 
but no longer know the meaning of where 

we are. The body is no more a home,
the home no more a world. I have papered 

the walls of my room with pictures of sons, 
covers of books, posters of festivals,

the ephemera of a life. When children 
come into custody, they bring nothing

with them but their hurt. This is called making 
a break with the past. We must be put back

in our place, made to know it like a nest, 
a burrow, a lea stone, a placenta,

an eggshell. Our dining room table 
belonged to my wife's parents. They bought it

when just married, to hold them until
they could afford better, but it has served

four generations now through fifty years.
Children of neglect must often be taught 

how to eat at a table, how to manipulate 
cutlery, how to believe there will still

be food tomorrow. Home must always be
relearned. I have planted our gardens 

with flowers stolen from the places where
our children were loved—jack-in-the-pulpits,

lady slippers, peonies—a landscape
irreconcilable with digital maps, 

with satellite GPS, with sequenced DNA,
where our ribs hold space like arches of sky,

where the beams of the house grow within us.

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

Jeremy Luke Hill is the publisher at Gordon Hill Press and The Porcupine's Quill, small press literary publishers based in Guelph, Ontario. He has written several books, chapbooks, and broadsheets, most recently Microchimaera (Baseline Press, 2024). His writing has appeared in many magazines and journals, including The Antigonish Review, ARC Poetry, CNQ, CV2, EVENT Magazine, filling Station, Free Fall, The Goose, HA&L, The Maynard, and The Puritan.

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: Crosby, Witek, Chang-Richardson, Smith, Tucker, Holmes + Young,

Gregory Crosby is interviewed over at talking about strawberries all of the time, as is Terri Witek; Ellen Chang-Richardson is interviewed by Leila Marshy at All Lit Up; Pete Smith is in the Canadian Poets Series over at Peripety and/or Tronies; Aaron Tucker and Michael Holmes and Derek Beaulieu all have new work up at NewPoetry; and Geoffrey Young has new work in the Spotlight series.

new from above/ground press: The World is Beautiful, by Lillian Nećakov

The World is Beautiful 
Lillian Nećakov
$6

The World is Beautiful

David Hockney says the world is beautiful. I believe him, because I am an optimist, knowing the average weights of the organs of the human body, knowing, there is a kind of reincarnation, even after you tell them, you sometimes wished you were a boy. Knowing the brain, at 49 ½ oz. Avoir – one thousand, three hundred eighty-nine point 13 grams and a bit more - is generous enough to endure both imagination and crown through the acrobatics of feasts and funerals.

David Hockney’s heart equals 11 oz. His eyes are the word we use for the colour of water, he widens the Grand Canyon as easily as letting out a seam, says the world is beautiful and I believe him. Knowing that lungs {right 24 oz. left 21 oz.} are the colanders of time, cradling vestiges of scree from the mass of one breath {0.5-5 g} times a lifetime. Knowing that there are lakes drowning in the whimsical ether of a tourniquet-wielding junkie-planet, invisible and blue.

David Hockney believes me when I say the world is beautiful, knowing that every swimming pool is a small bit of heaven where you and Fred Astaire are always cheek to cheek, knowing that a body in motion stays in motion, knowing that the executioner never takes his finger off the trigger, not even when the kiss is slower than death. Knowing that Popeye clung to Olive Oyl behind the spinach cannery while the sun parched our lips raw. Knowing that night is coming, like a confession, dressed in raspberry, saw-toothed hot pants.

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

Lillian Nećakov is the author of many chapbooks, including, The Lake Contains and Emergency Room (Apt. 9 Press; shortlisted for the bpNichol Chapbook Award), as well as the full-length collections il virus (Anvil Press; shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award), Hooligans (Mansfield Press), The Bone Broker (Mansfield Press), Hat Trick (Exile Editions), Polaroids (Coach House Books), The Sickbed of Dogs (Wolsak and Wynn), Midnight Glossolalia, a collaborative poetry collection with Scott Ferry and Lauren Scharhag (Meat for Tea Press), Duck Eats Yeast, Quacks, Explodes; Man Loses eye, a collaborative poem with Gary Barwin (Guernica Editions). She has also published in many print and online journals in Canada and the U.S. Lillian lives in Toronto.

This is Nećakov’s second chapbook with above/ground press, after 3¢ Pulp (2022).

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

new from above/ground press: household: meadow, by Kate Siklosi

household: meadow
Kate Siklosi
$6

The yard

hers, unsilenced, hers, bright. uttered. unafraid of syntax, little fire, lit and sparking. open-mouthed, barefoot, bellied to the sun.

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

cover image by Mina Simone Siklosi Welch

Kate Siklosi’s work includes Selvage (Invisible 2023), leavings (Timglaset 2021), and six chapbooks of poetry. Her critical and creative work has also been featured across North America, Europe, and the UK. She also curates the Small Press Map of Canada and is co-founding editor of Gap Riot Press.

This is Kate Siklosi’s third above/ground press title, after po po poems (2018) and 1956 (2019). She co-edited (with Dani Spinosa) G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #8 (2020). In 2022, above/ground press produced Report from the Siklosi Society, Vols. 1 and 2.

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

De Villo Sloan reviews Nada Gordon's COPIUM (2025) at Asemic Front 2

De Villo Sloan was good enough to provide a first review of Nada Gordon's COPIUM (2025) over at Asemic Front 2. Thanks so much! You can read the original post here. As they write:

COPIUM by Nada Gordon
Ottawa, Canada: above/ground press, August 2025
24 pages; stapled

Review by De Villo Sloan

rob mclennan has added another literary gem to the list of recent chapbooks issued by above/ground press in Ottawa, Canada, with the publication of COPIUM by Nada Gordon.

COPIUM is a single lyric poem composed of elegant tercets that encode opulent imagery like ornate beadwork. Through associations, wordplay, unexpected juxtapositions, and explorations of poetic discourse, Gordon creates a unique and engaging record of what in Modernity is known as “the stream of consciousness.”

Her narrative melds objective and subjective realities; she skillfully provides multiple perspectives on daily life. The book includes images by Gordon in collaboration with MidJourney AI.

COPIUM succeeds on its Flarfy juxtapositions, irony, popcult references, and occasional absurdist incoherence. She has developed a postavant poetic line that extends Modernist fragmentation into new realms, which I believe is an accomplishment of great significance.

Nada Gordon has a rare ability to create poetic forms that permit (if they do not encourage) multiple but equally illuminating interpretations. In COPIUM, I unexpectedly found a lyric poem of outstanding beauty and insight. The third and fourth stanzas of the poem provide a good example of how its self-reflexivity contributes to the poem’s genesis:

    Peacock fanning out…
    swans entwining necks
    as co-beings

    feathering extremities
    like kelp, flowers, hands
    in a diamond brain (brine) of lost time.

For me, the pleasure of reading COPIUM is found in its self-reflective reverie, (consciously) aesthetic escapism, and its meta-poetical commentary. Gordon gives me the sublime experience of decayed opulence described to perfection with imagery by Charles Baudelaire in The Flowers of Evil. I find myself returning to the text for the pleasure of its aesthetic decadence for the same reasons I return to Baudelaire and Poe. 

COPIUM is also a fascinating compendium of English language nouns and adjectives that are useful in both scientific and artistic discourse. Here is an example from COPIUM by Nada Gordon showing her use of particulars:

           Caves of gems, and a pomegranate gem
           as a giant war demon.
           Mendelssohn infuses a dark city

           With the idea of ‘charging’
           (being recharged) –
           rogue elephants

           the tusk, the tree
           the metals, the mortals,
           breath and gourds and reeds.

           what are:

           ‘words’ ‘texts’ ‘friends’
           ‘membranes’ ‘borders’ ‘organs’

           countries’ ‘Jews’ ‘food’
           animals’ ‘cities’ ‘books’
           ‘cells’ ‘Gaza’ ‘gauze’

Paradoxically, however, looking beyond traces of conceptual writing, Gordon’s lyric is built on the solid foundation of, “No ideas but in things.” In fact, a close linguistic analysis of the various catalogs woven into COPIUM would likely produce interesting results.

A worldview present in Gordon’s writing is that language is an inevitable intermediary in human communication, expression and – of course - poetry. COPIUM is a lush sea of imagery and a (sometimes) mechanistic interrogation of language. Nada Gordon often approaches the edge of meaning: the same terrain as asemic writers. She brings COPIUM into the realm of visual and concrete poetry:

    Owls
    Opals
    Opossums

    and a lunar pOnd
    the loss of pherOmOne pOwer
    in the OdORless digital world

    The letter O:
    Just lOOk at it!
    Ketamina LOy.

Nada Gordon's COPIUM is a multi-faceted composition that invites readers to engage with the text often, revealing multiple perspectives and interpretations. She is one of our most important poetic voices. above/ground press has done extraordinary work producing this edition. If you only purchase one chapbook in 2025, order COPIUM by Nada Gordon. 

some author activity: Walker, Berlatsky, Niespodziany, Markotić, Archer, Ebbitt + the Indie Lit Market!

Laura Walker has new work up at Astrolabe; Noah Berlatsky has three poems in the new issue of Ranger; Benjamin Niespodziany has two new poems up at HAD; Nicole Markotić is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Sacha Archer has four pieces up at A-Minor; Katie Ebbitt has new work at talking about strawberries all of the time; and don't forget the Indie Lit Market in Toronto on November 2nd!

new from above/ground press: eyesore, by Johannes S.H. Bjerg and Charlotte Jung

eyesore
Johannes S.H. Bjerg and Charlotte Jung
$6

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

cover image by Johannes S.H. Bjerg

Johannes S. H. Bjerg is a Danish writer and artist. He works hard at not overdoing it. www.megaga.dk

Charlotte Jung is a concrete poet and playwright based in Stockholm – for more information about her and her work please see www.charlottejungwriter.com

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

above/ground press: 2026 subscriptions now available!

The race to the half-century continues! And with more than FOURTEEN HUNDRED TITLES produced to date over nearly thirty-two years, there’s been a ton of above/ground press activity over the past calendar year, including MORE THAN FIFTY TITLES (so far) produced in 2025 alone, including: poetry chapbooks by Eudore Évanturel (trans. by Jamie Sharpe, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Jason Heroux, Jon Cone, Ben Ladouceur, Yaxkin Melchy (trans. by Ryan Greene, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Michael Sikkema, Laynie Browne, Nada Gordon, Ellen Chang-Richardson, Buck Downs, Noah Berlatsky, Andrew Brenza, Mandy Sandhu, Lina Ramona Vitkauskas, Steph Gray, Beatriz Hausner, J-T Kelly, Terri Witek, Jason Christie, Micah Ballard, Monty Reid, Tom Jenks, Orchid Tierney, Brook Houglum, Sandra Doller, Eileen Myles, Gregory Crosby, Kevin Davies, Lori Anderson Moseman, Thor Polukoshko, Lydia Unsworth, Ryan Skrabalak, Jacob Braun, Cary Fagan, Gwen Aube, Penn Kemp, Maxwell Gontarek, Nathanael O’Reilly, Catriona Strang, Andy Weaver and Alice Burdick; prose chapbooks by Jason Heroux, Stuart Ross, Meredith Quartermain, Leah Souffrant and R Kolewe; the chapbook anthologies Verse on the Banks / Poèmes sur le rivage, eds./dir. Véronique Sylvain and/de David O’Meara, and the suitcase poem, ed. Amanda Earl; issues of the poetry quarterly Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] and an issue of The Peter F. Yacht Club (all of which are still in print, at least for the moment).

NEW SLIDING SCALE SUBSCRIPTIONS (AND RESUBSCRIPTIONS): Postal increases this year have been brutal (30% back in January), so I’m taking Stuart Ross’ sage advice, and for 2026, I will be offering a sliding scale subscription rate. According to multiple folk (including current subscribers), I really should have upped the rates years ago, but I always resist, not wanting to price anybody out (as I think finances is the worst reason to not be able to participate). Subscriptions include everything above/ground press makes from the moment you subscribe through to the end of 2026, such as chapbooks, broadsheets, The Peter F. Yacht Club and G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] and quarterly poetry journal Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal].

CANADIAN SUBSCRIPTIONS : $75-$120 (CAN $)
AMERICAN SUBSCRIPTIONS : $75-$120 (US $)
INTERNATIONAL SUBSCRIPTIONS : $100-$140 (CAN $)

Honestly, if you are open to subscribing, whatever works within that particular range is completely fine! Not everyone has the same kinds of resources, and the main goal is to have the books available to those who want them. As well, anyone who subscribes on or by December 1st will also receive the last above/ground press package of 2025, including those exciting new titles by a number of those folk listed above, plus whatever else the press happens to produce before the turn of the new year.

Why wait? You can either send a cheque (payable to rob mclennan) to 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1H 7M9, or send money via PayPal or e-transfer to rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com (or through the PayPal button at robmclennan.blogspot.com).

Forthcoming items through the press also include individual chapbooks by Frances Cannon, Lance La Rocque, russell carisse, David Gaffney, Kevin Spenst, Lillian Nećakov, Jill Stengel, a collaboration between Cary Fagan and Rebecca Comay, Buck Downs, Guy Birchard, Benjamin Niespodziany, Jeremy Luke Hill, Mrityunjay Mohan, David Phillips, and a collaboration between Charlotte Jung and Johannes S.H. Bjerg, as well as Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] #47, featuring new work by Jason Christie, Sabyasachi (Sachi) Nag, Aidan Chafe, Sarah Rosenthal, Meredith Quartermain, c.a.r. rafuse and Susan Gevirtz (a couple of which have already been sent to the printer, by the by), as well as a whole slew of publications that haven't even been decided on yet. Who knows what might happen next.

And don’t forget our glorious new substack! I’ve been posting author features/interviews over there for a while now, lots of cool updates that way (and a good way to catch the occasional above/ground press update).

And don’t forget (also) that groundswell: the best of the third decade of above/ground press, 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2024) is also still available, yes? 

The Factory Reading Series is gearing up for some further events, but have you seen the virtual reading series over at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics (with otherwise new monthly online content, by the way; the pandemic-era extension of above/ground press). Have you seen the posts, as well, through the (ottawa) small press almanac? lots of information on above/ground press and everyone else in town who makes chapbooks/ephemera etcetera! And the next edition (32nd anniversary!) of the ottawa small press fair is November 22nd!