some author activity: Aube, Kemp, Kronovet, Earl, Wells + MacEachern,

Gwen Aube has new work up at Maisonneuve; Penn Kemp has a new poem up at Centred.ca, and there's an article on her work in the London Free Press and new work in The Typescript; Arlington poet laureate Jennifer Kronovet took part in a recent event in the county; Amanda Earl has a long poem up at Canto; Christina Wells offers reading recommendations via The Fiddlehead; and a poem by Jessi MacEachern lands on the Room Magazine 2026 Poetry Contest Longlist.

Publishing-in-Transit: Cole Swensen zoom-interviewed Jennifer Baker, rob mclennan + Misha Solomon on above/ground press for Brooklyn Rail: recording now online,

It was such a good conversation! Check out the full hour-plus conversation with myself, Misha Solomon and Jennifer Baker on and around above/ground press, conducted by the brilliant Cole Swensen and hosted by Brooklyn Rail, either here through their site or via their YouTube channel. We talked about VERSeFest, we talked a brief history of above/ground press, we talked about Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] (and hear the legend of how the donkey got its name) and even the “Tuesday poem” series. You can order Misha Solomon’s above/ground press titles here (and his new book over here), Jennifer Baker’s above/ground press titles here, and my above/ground press titles here (or the chapbook I read from, even). Cole Swensen even has an above/ground press title! But you know she has a new book as well, yes? Thanks to everyone who made this thing happen!

report: Writer-in-Residence 50th Anniversary Alumni Showcase : Abel, Marlatt, Wah, mclennan, Carpenter, fitzpatrick, etc

In case you hadn't heard, above/ground press was well represented this past week at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, as part of the University of Alberta's Writer-in-Residence 50th Anniversary Alumni Showcase, held near the end of a full week when a slew of us prior writers-in-residence got to spend time together at the Banff Centre, up in them mountains (there was a full two days of snowfall, if you can imagine).

Hosted by Jordan Abel [who currently runs the w-i-r program], Jason Purcell and Julianna Wager [above, who organized the entire week as well], the event had opening remarks on a (very) brief history of the University of Alberta writer-in-residence program [remember when I conducted all those interviews for the fortieth, with every still-living uAlberta writer-in-residence I could find?] by Thomas Wharton, and readings by Daphne Marlatt, Fred Wah, Marilyn Dumont, Makda Mulatu, rob mclennan, Joshua Whitehead, January Rogers, J.R. Carpenter, ryan fitzpatrick, Cody Caetano, Jana Pruden, Kaitlyn Purcell and Hiromi Goto. There was a livestream that one can catch here, which unfortunately missed Wharton, picking up only mid-point through Marlatt's reading, but the full event was recorded, and should be up soon.

[J.R. Carpenter, above] With everyone reading roughly five minutes each, it truly was a remarkable event overall, including singing, staccato, lyric, chanting and prose, and even some tears. As you already know, the event was also a kind of launch for a handful of recent above/ground press titles specifically made for the event, by myself, Fred Wah, Daphne Marlatt, J.R. Carpenter, ryan fitzpatrick and Derek Beaulieu (Director of the Literary Arts at Banff, but not actually reading, although in the audience), although Wah was the only one of the group that actually read from his new title (I mean, I didn't even do that, so I've no business throwing shade). There were a handful of copies of all of these titles on site for free distribution, both through the event specifically and across the whole week, with a mound of copies still available gratis through the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta (just prod at Jordan Abel, if you are up that way), or just order direct from the press, of course. And did you hear I'm even back at the Banff Centre this November? I've already got a new slew of above/ground press publications in the works, just you wait.

[ryan fitzpatrick, above] It was good, also, to see various audience I hadn't been expecting (amid our packed house), including poet and former Tsunami Editions publisher Michael Barnholden, driving in from Edmonton with his wife, or poet Ryanne Kap, driving in from Calgary with a friend. Separately, Winnipeg poet Sharanpal Ruprai was actually at Banff as part of a playwriting retreat, and Vancouver poet Adèle Barclay was there as well, working a couple of weeks in one of the Leighton cabins, retreating. Edmonton writer Conor Kerr, who teaches at the University of Alberta, was also part of our group for most of the week. It still doesn't feel real, how good it all was.

Cole Swensen zoom-interviews rob mclennan, Misha Solomon + Jennifer Baker May 20th on above/ground press for Brooklyn Rail,

Publishing-in-Transit: above/ground
Featuring Jennifer Baker, rob mclennan, Misha Solomon

Wednesday, May 20, 2026
1 p.m. Eastern / 10 a.m. Pacific

REGISTER HERE

Poets Jennifer Baker, rob mclennan, and Misha Solomon join Rail contributor Cole Swensen for a conversation on Zoom on above/ground press (which turns thirty-three years old this summer, by the way). 

Jennifer Baker is a poet and Teaching Professor of English Literature and Creative Writing on unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe territory at the University of Ottawa. She is the author of four chapbooks: Abject Lessons (above/ground press, 2014), Groundling (Trainwreck Press, 2021/reissued by above/ground press, 2023), Memento Mishka (co-authored with David Currie, Apt. 9 Press, 2023), and Wee Walk (above/ground press, 2026). Her work has been featured in Groundwork: Best of above/ground press (2023), Arc Poetry Magazine, Canthius, The Journal of Canadian Poetry, Canadian Literature, Dusie, and the Delisted project. 

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of some fifty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles include On Beauty: stories (University of Alberta Press, 2024), the poetry collections the book of sentences (University of Calgary Press, 2025) and edgeless (Caitlin Press, 2026), and the anthology groundworks: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023). The current Artistic Director of VERSeFest: Ottawa’s International Poetry Festival, he founded above/ground press, a publisher of chapbooks, journals and other ephemera, way back in July 1993. He also spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta.

Misha Solomon is a homosexual poet in and of Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. His work has appeared in journals across Canada and has been anthologized in Best Canadian Poetry 2024, 2026, and 2027 (Biblioasis) and in On Occasion: Poems for the People (Coach House Books). He is the author of three chapbooks, including FLORALS and Misha Solomon's BIODÔME: A Bestiary after Stephanie Bolster (above/ground press), and one full-length collection, My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet (Brick Books). He has a BA from Columbia University, an MA from Concordia University, and he is currently a student in Concordia’s Interdisciplinary Humanities PhD program.

Cole Swensen [see her above/ground press title here] is the author of twenty volumes of poetry, most recently And And And (Shearsman Books, 2023), which was long-listed for the Griffin Poetry Prize, and a collection of critical essays, Noise That Stays Noise. A book of hybrid poem-essays, Art in Time, was published by Nightboat in 2021. A former Guggenheim Fellow, she has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the LA Times Book Award and has been awarded the Iowa Poetry Prize, the SF State Poetry Center Book Award, and the National Poetry Series. She has also translated over twenty volumes of poetry, prose, and art criticism from French and won the 2024 ALTA National Translation Award and the 2025 Stephen Mitchell Translation Award.

some author activity: Tynes, O'Reilly + Robertson,

Jen Tynes was offering nearly-daily poems as part of National Poetry Month over at the Bloof Books blog; Nathanael O'Reilly has new work up at Cordite; and there is a new interview with Lisa Robertson up at minor literature[s], as conducted by Christina Politano.

some author activity: Armantrout, mclennan, fitzpatrick, Smith, Saklikar, Kemp-Gee, Bolster + Solomon,

Rae Armantrout has four poems up at Granta; rob mclennan is interviewed via Coach House for the On Occasion anthology; there's also a hefty interview with mclennan conducted by ryan fitzpatrick; Mahaila Smith is interviewed via the National Poetry Month "POETS RESIST" interview series at All Lit Up, as is Renée Sarojini Saklikar and Meghan Kemp-Gee, and Stephanie Bolster and Misha Solomon's recent chapbooks even get mentioned via the Wikipedia page for Montreal's Biodome, which is cool.

new from above/ground press: Sparky and Squire, by Derek Beaulieu

Sparky and Squire
Derek Beaulieu
$6

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
May 2026
produced in part for activity at Banff Centre, May 11-18, 2026, as part of the 50th anniversary of the University of Alberta Writer-in-Residence program
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Dr. Derek Beaulieu is the author/editor of over twenty-five collections of poetry, prose, and criticism. His most recent book, Do It Wrong: How to be a Poet in the 21st Century, was published by Assembly Press in the Spring of 2026. Beaulieu has received the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal for his dedication to Albertan literature and CCWWP Robert Kroetsch Award for excellence in innovative pedagogy and teaching practice. He is the only graduate from the University of Calgary’s Department of English to receive the Faculty of Arts ‘Celebrated Alumni Award’ and the only graduate in creative writing to receive Roehampton University’s Chancellor’s Alumni Award. Beaulieu has served as Poet Laureate of both Calgary and Banff and is the Director of Literary Arts at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. He can be found online at www.derekbeaulieu.ca

This is Derek Beaulieu’s twelfth above/ground press chapbook, after an issue of the long poem magazine STANZAS (“calcite gours 1-19,” issue no. 38), the interview chapbook ECONOMIES OF SCALE: rob mclennan interviews derek beaulieu on NO PRESS / derek beaulieu interviews rob mclennan on above/ground press (2012) and single-author chapbooks “A? any questions? (1998), [Dear Fred] (2004), HOW TO EDIT, Chapter A. (ALBERTA SERIES #8; 2008), transcend transcribe transfigure transform transgress (2014), a a novel: 1-20 (2017), tattered sails (after un coup de des) (2018), CABARET (2020), ONTARIO HYDRO (2023) and tattered sails (after un coup de des) (second printing, 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

some author activity: Crosby, Naughton, Davis, Betts + mclennan,

Gregory Crosby has a poem up at Stone Circle Review; Katie Naughton has two new poems up at The Rumpus; Jordan Davis has new work up at the Chaudiere Books blog for National Poetry Month; Gregory Betts has a poem up in the Niagara Falls Poetry Project; and a poem by rob mclennan gets mentioned in Paul Pearson's Slow Poetry Reading Project.

new from above/ground press: from the green notebook, by rob mclennan

from the green notebook :
, a writing vigil,
rob mclennan
$6

I’m rereading notes sketched out last November, responding to the death of Prince George, British Columbia poet Barry McKinnon. Christine and I, along with our young ladies and mother-in-law, headed to Florida for the sake of finally taking the children to Disney, a trip delayed due to the onset of the Covid era. Apparently the goal was to catch the trip before Rose turned ten, which would then have her charged as an adult. I carried my Red Deer College Press reissue of McKinnon’s I wanted to say something (1990) across Universal Studios, suburban Orlando and Walt Disney World, capturing photos of his book from our hotel deck, in the Cantina, by the Millennial Falcon, a Tie-Fighter, by a fire-breathing dragon in Harry Potter’s Hogsmeade. I amused myself by carrying a book by my late friend across a ridiculous series of outings, mere days after he’d died.

Working through my many pages of rough drafts, I’m realizing my poem-sketches are closer in tone and structure to the late John Newlove’s 1964 poem “Ride Off Any Horizon,” a poem that first appeared in book-form in his Black Night Window (1968); how I utilize variations of the phrase “I wanted to say something” as a repetition, from which poem-fragments might return to leap from. As Newlove once said of his own poem, originally using his phrase as a compositional tool that he’d remove from later drafts, which he ended up being unable to strike out. “Ride off any horizon / and let the measure fall / where it may— [.]”

In his Paris Review interview (1968), Robert Creeley responds: “I’m really speaking of my own sense of place.” This is the sensibility that Barry McKinnon brought to Prince George when they moved there, what I also absorbed across my twenties and into my thirties from those British Columbia poets. The very notion of Robert Creeley invited up north to read, into McKinnon’s local. What might that have sounded like.

*

The earth moves, through parts of New England. A rare New York earthquake. Come Monday, the solar eclipse. Some say we’re in end-times. Kim Trainor’s A blueprint for survival (2024) speaks to wildfires, the British Columbia interior, the coast. Matt Rader’s FINE (2024). The poetry, that makes nothing happen.

I spend half an hour tweaking three short stories at RedBird, a music venue in Old Ottawa South, as Aoife attends her weekly ukulele lessons. She couldn’t find her pink ukulele, so she has borrowed my lime green model, the one Sharon Harris gifted me during their move from apartment to house, back in 2010. I am working on stories.

There is a certain point of the editing/copy editing process that is less improving upon and is simply changing. This story isn’t any better, but it sure is shorter, or longer. Or different. The idea of spending thirty years working a self-portrait in oil to keep up with the changes. It might never be finished.

There were tales of the late Steven Heighton (1961-2022), attending revisions and reworks of his prose to the point of checking in with the printers of his books, which his publishers and editors were not necessarily happy about. At some point, one has to let go. Or pull it back.

I had hoped also to look at poems this morning, but naturally, they remain in my office, freshly printed. And I am here, instead.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
May 2026
as the thirty-fourth title in above/ground’s prose/naut imprint
produced in part for activity at Banff Centre, May 11-18, 
2026, as part of the 50th anniversary of the University of 
Alberta Writer-in-Residence program
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of some fifty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles include On Beauty: stories (University of Alberta Press, 2024), the poetry collections the book of sentences (University of Calgary Press, 2025) and edgeless (Caitlin Press, 2026), and the anthology groundworks: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023). The current Artistic Director of VERSeFest: Ottawa’s International Poetry Festival, he spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta.

This is mclennan’s seventieth above/ground press chapbook, following recent titles including Origin stories (2026), the collaborative river / estuaries (with Julie Carr; 2023), edgeless : letters, (2023), The Alta Vista Improvements (2023), Autobiography (2022), the collaborative SOME LEAVES (with Gary Barwin; 2020), Twenty-one stories, (2020), Poems for Lunch Poems for SFU (2020), Somewhere in-between / cloud (2019), Study of a fox (2018), snow day (2018) and It’s still winter (2017).

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

Writer-in-Residence 50th Anniversary Alumni Showcase: mclennan, fitzpatrick, Wah, Marlatt, Carpenter, etc;

May 15, 2026 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM

Clvb 33, St. Julien Way, Banff, AB and online

REGISTER HERE;

The Writer-in-Residence program in the Department of English and Film Studies is delighted to invite you to attend our 50th anniversary Writer-in-Residence Alumni Showcase at the Banff Centre's Clvb 33. All are welcome to attend either in person or virtually.

There will be readings from Thomas Wharton, Fred Wah, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Cody Caetano, JR Carpenter, rob mclennan, Daphne Marlatt, Jana Pruden, Hiromi Goto, and Marilyn Dumont.

new from above/ground press: Shanzai, by Fred Wah

Shanzai
Fred Wah
$6

CALL OF DUTY
            (sub for Fleetwood Mac “Dreamin”)


Is this the Dream?
Mm…
Mm…
Now here we go again
I say I want my freedom
So what’s the fuss to keep me down?
It wasn’t right I had to pay
my way you know it.
But listen carefully
to the sounds of my loneliness,
like the boat that brought me here
In the sadness of remembering what I’d left,
and what I dream for, and what I’d left
and what I dream for.

This shallow life is not what I was dreaming
Deep down inside the emptiness is screaming
Other dreams will come and they will go
If the mountain turns to gold
I’ll know, I’ll know.

Now here I go again, my trans Pacific vision
American as railroad pie
It’s not just me
who looks for freedom in a dream, that
liberating dream I’ll have to buy.

Days of loneliness
Empty dreaming drives me mad
In the sadness of remembering what I had,
and what I lost, and what I had,
ooh what I dream for.

This shallow life is not what I was dreaming
Deep down inside the emptiness is screaming
Other dreams they will come and they will go
If the mountain turns to gold, I’ll know.


Oh yes, I’ll know.


ABOUT:

On Labour Day weekend in 1988 I became the Writer-in-Residence at the University of Alberta. My wife, Pauline Butling and I, had arrived in Edmonton from South Slocan in southeastern B.C. I had a sore back which prevented me from joining Pauline and our friend Pamela Banting on a hike that weekend, just before the school term started. Earlier that summer, I had been teaching with bpNichol at a workshop in Red Deer and bp had encouraged me to try my hand at the 3-day novel writing contest put on annually by Arsenal Pulp Press. While Pauline and Pamela went off hiking, I stayed home and decided to try writing a 3-day novel. I managed about 60 pages of anecdotal biotext. On Tuesday morning at school when Rudy Wiebe asked me what I’d done for the weekend I told him I had written a novel. I had never felt very comfortable writing prose (which was really the reason bp had urged me to try this contest; his novel Still had won it in 1983) and the results of my marathon writing weekend reflected this. I put that effort aside, though I pecked at it a little. A few years later my colleague and editor Aritha Van Herk helped me shape the manuscript into a book of short fiction, Diamond Grill. 

Over the past twenty years the discourse generated for me by writing Diamond Grill extended into other writing. A major project for me was a collaboration titled High Muck a Muck: Playing Chinese (https://highmuckamuck.ca/), a multimedia project involving video, music, oral history, performance, and text.

The text for this chapbook, Shanzai, is some of my writing salvaged from that project. Suitably, for this 50th Anniversary of the U of A’s Writer-in-Residence program, it was seeded during my residency of 1988-89.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
May 2026
produced in part for activity at Banff Centre, May 11-18, 2026, as part of the 50th anniversary of the University of Alberta Writer-in-Residence program
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Fred Wah was born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan and lives in Vancouver and the West Kootenays. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a former Parliamentary Poet Laureate. His writing includes Diamond Grill, a biofiction about growing up in a small-town Chinese-Canadian café, Sentenced to Light, collaborations with visual artists, is a door, a series of poems about hybridity. More recent books are beholden: a poem as long as the river with Rita Wong and Music at the Heart of Thinking: Improvisations.

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: So Now, by Daphne Marlatt

So Now
Daphne Marlatt
$6

wet lashes



water embodied one of many
watery beings we skim wet
eyes down pavement swallows
saliva bodies yak yakking up alleyway
piss against old brick small
in the large undoing of other
being inter-
ested species love no single
winner involved this deep this
close-up sea-sky-weed-seal we
swim with

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
May 2026
produced in part for activity at Banff Centre, May 11-18, 
2026, as part of the 50th anniversary of the University of 
Alberta Writer-in-Residence program
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Vancouver writer Daphne Marlatt is a critically acclaimed poet and novelist, known for her novel, Ana Historic (1988, 2004, 2013), Vancouver Poems (1972) and Liquidities (2013). The bicultural production of her Canadian Noh play set on the West Coast, The Gull, received the 2008 international Uchimura Naoya Prize.  And her long poem in prose fragments, The Given, won the 2009 Dorothy Livesay Award. In 2012 she received the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award.  Talonbooks issued her Collected Earlier Poems, 1968-2008, edited by Susan Holbrook, in 2017. In 2025, Chax Press, Arizona, released recent poems, Splinters & Streams.

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: shore thing, by J.R. Carpenter

shore thing
J. R. Carpenter
$6

knee pads. 
joint aches.

glove hands.
wave wakes.

palm reads. 
sharp grit. 

boot slides.
slime slick. 

wind bone.
cold keen. 

caught prone.
torch beam.

dull gleam. 
of marble.

the sheen.
of cut.

stone dressed. 
for something.

grander.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
May 2026
produced in part for activity at Banff Centre, May 11-18, 
2026, as part of the 50th anniversary of the University of 
Alberta Writer-in-Residence program
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

J. R. Carpenter is a queer artist, writer, researcher, fossil hunter, PLA licensed mudlark, and Lecturer in Creative Practice in the School of English at University of Leeds, UK. The Gathering Cloud won the New Media Writing Prize 2016. An Ocean of Static was highly commended by the judges of the Forward Prizes 2018. A General History of the Air was published by above/ground in 2020. This is a Picture of Wind was listed in The Guardian’s best poetry books of 2020 and featured in the Digital Storytelling exhibition at the British Library 2023. Measures of Weather was a poetry book of the month in The Observer and a finalist for the Laurel Prize 2025. p a u s e. was published by Broken Sleep Books in 2026. For more information, visit: luckysoap.com

This is Carpenter’s second chapbook with above/ground press, after A General History of the Air (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

some author activity: Barwin, Tierney, Strang, Mc Donnell, Sparrow, Swensen, Johnson + Earl,

Doreen Nicoll interviews Gary Barwin for the Small Change Podcast; Orchid Tierney has new work in petrichor; Catriona Strang has a poem up at the Chaudiere Books blog as part of National Poetry Month, as does Conor Mc Donnell, Noah Sparrow, Cole Swensen and Chris Johnson; and Amanda Earl is part of an assemblage of translations of John Keats over at Asymptote, as curated by Johanna Drucker.

new from above/ground press: METAL OF THE FUTURE, by ryan fitzpatrick

METAL OF THE FUTURE
ryan fitzpatrick
$6

SO HYPE 
to join the last vestiges of humanity 
in existential struggle
but am I really, sincerely 
ARMAGETTING what that means?

*insert rockin’ solo*

*tap watch impatiently*

All of your loving?
All of your time?
MINE NOW! MINE!

Gonna melt the Arctic Circle of your heart
and also the planet
to extract what’s there

A REAL MARKET CONCEPT
BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY  
AN AUTOMATED PROGRAM TRADING 
FED SLUICED LIQUIDITY 
FINANCIAL CIRCUIT BREAKER TYPE 
MARKET CONCEPT

Fig. 1: Market Cap by Rare Mineral Density

Irrationalized exuberance
BORING AMERICA

THERE IS SOME POINT TO IT
AND I DONT KNOW WHAT THAT POINT IS

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
May 2026
produced in part for activity at Banff Centre, May 11-18, 
2026, as part of the 50th anniversary of the University of 
Alberta Writer-in-Residence program
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

ryan fitzpatrick currently lives in Calgary, where the Bow meets the Elbow, spiritual centre of cowboy resentment.

This is fitzpatrick’s sixth above/ground press title, after STANZAS #25 (“further revisions,” July 2001), Adolesce (2005), dealingwithit.gif (2015), Dang Me (2020) and Spectral Arcs (2024). Report from the fitzpatrick Society, Vol 1. No. 1, appeared in 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

new from above/ground press: My Little Sister, by Elena Zhang

My Little Sister
Elena Zhang
$6

Lemons

I lost my little sister near 
a lemon tree. The morning clouds 
shuddered 
and made a life. 
I patted my pockets for hours 
before giving up. 
The lemons 
were as big as throats. 
It’s easier to say sister than god. 
It’s easier to desire than pray.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
April 2026
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Cover image: Aoife McLennan

Elena Zhang is a Chinese American writer and mother living in Chicago. She is the author of the micro-chapbook The Moon, My Heart (tiny wren lit, 2025), and her work can be found in HAD, Wigleaf, and X-R-A-Y, among other publications. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, and was selected for Best Microfiction 2024, 2025, and 2026.

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: Tynes, Farina, Cone, Brockwell, Unsworth, Weaver, Christie, Shafer, Houbolt + Armantrout,

Jen Tynes, Laura Farina, Jon Cone, Stephen Brockwell (for Jason Christie), Lydia Unsworth and forthcoming author Emily Shafer all have poems on the Chaudiere Books blog for National Poetry Month; Brockwell also has new work up at The Pi Review, as does Andy Weaver; Kyla Houbolt has work in eunoia review; and Rae Armantrout has a poem up at The New Yorker.

new from above/ground press: TAKE COVER, EVERYONE, by Clara Yeager and Sarah Burgoyne

TAKE COVER, EVERYONE
Clara Yeager and Sarah Burgoyne
$6

Fish that I am, and what I am.
I hold impressive secrets. They fill my ears.
Fridge in the back of my fish cave. Yes, 
I am brave. I am. Am I?

Windows peer into my eel-like soul that jolts electrically
when I listen. I only hear screams
Oh-so-da-Gama-ray…

Why was it that when I dyed my hair you stared
at me with dismay, like the auburn-coloured rocks
that you gave me on my 734th birthday, like the yarn
with which I spin this incredible sub-aquatic tale. 

Unseaward is my name and my father’s. And his father’s
and not his father but his mother’s. 

Seabored, yes I am that. Dear reader, 
try to discover with me this light in my skull
that guides my future descendants back home. 

Plastic may be the main terrestrial ingredient of Garbage Island
but I wish to leave. 

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
April 2026
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Clara Yeager and Sarah Burgoyne have collaborated on three poetry collections, Take Cover Everyone, Yes, Your Majesty and We’ve Lost Our Celebrity. Each of their titles is based on a line Clara has uttered on stage and each book is written in the span of three hours. Sarah Burgoyne is the author of Because the Sun (Coach House: 2021), Saint Twin (Mansfield: 2016) and Mechanophilia (Anvil: 2023), an infinite collaboration with American poet Vi Khi Nao. Clara Yeager is a grade nine student in Montreal and an actrice who has starred in productions such as Mean Girls the Musical as Karen, as well as Anything Goes, Frozen and Legally Blonde. They have been friends for over a decade. 

This is Sarah Burgoyne’s fifth above/ground press title, after A Precarious Life on the Sea (2016), TENTACULUM SONNETS (2020), the collaborative WHERE FORTH ART THOUGH (with Susan Burgoyne; 2020) and AN ACCURATE CIGARETTE: Poetry & Prompts (2026).

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: Mellis, Munson, Christie, Brockwell, Niespodziany + Levy,

Miranda Mellis is interviewed over at Tricycle; Jed Munson has new work up at the Chaudiere Books blog for National Poetry Month, as does Jason Christie (a poem for Stephen Brockwell), Benjamin Niespodziany has new work up at The Bulb Region; and John Levy has new work up at The Pi Review.

some author activity: Sandhu, Sawyer, Vitkauskas, Weaver, Marlatt, Pirie, Logan + Shirley,

Mandy Sandhu has some poems up at talking about strawberries all of the time, as do Larry Sawyer and Lina Ramona Vitkauskas; Andy Weaver has a new poem up as part of National Poetry Month on the Chaudiere Books blog, as does forthcoming author Daphne Marlatt, and even Pearl Pirie; Nate Logan has new work up at Some Words; and Vik Shirley has new work up at And Other Poems.

some author activity: Clayton, Niespodziany, Sikkema, Earl, Levy + MacEachern,

Conyer Clayton is included in the Canadian Poets Series over at Peripety and/or Tronies; Benjamin Niespodziany has two new poems up at HAD; Michael Sikkema has new work up at Antiphony; Amanda Earl has new visual poems up at talking about strawberries all of the time, where John Levy also has new visual collaborations with Shloka Shankar; and Jessi MacEachern has a new poem up at the Chaudiere Books blog for National Poetry Month.

some author activity: Barwin + Nećakov, Harder, Ebbitt, Koss, Adams + Pirie,

Gary Barwin and Lillian Nećakov have work from a collaboration-in-progress over at talking about strawberries all of the time, where Shelly Harder also has new work, and Pearl Pirie has new work, and Katie Ebbitt is interviewed; Zane Koss has a poem on the Chaudiere Books blog for National Poetry Month, ; Carrie Olivia Adams writes on her reading series, poetry, and biscuits over at LitHub; and Pearl Pirie has two new poems up at The Pi Review.

new from above/ground press: Consequences, by Susan Rudy

Consequences
Susan Rudy
$6

Telling the truth about my own experiences as a body

That kiss in Mrs Dalloway.

That life is complicated is a fact of great analytical importance. 

That sickening moment when I realise, sitting across the table and listening to her story, that I feel scorn for conventional women. 

That’s great, he said, how wonderful.

That’s the fiction of memoir, that you can actually remember.

The ‘wife’ he refers to in the Cabaret video, while singing ‘Fancy Free’, the wife who was me, where is she now?

The abandonment of a prescribed way of living for the abyss of self-determination.

The ache of desire, pushed away.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
as the thirty-third title in above/ground’s prose/naut imprint
April 2026
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Cover Artwork by Alisa Ochoa

Susan Rudy is a London-based academic and writer whose work creates space for voices that are often silenced or split—especially those navigating complex relationships to gender, care, and creativity. 

She works with language as archive and medium, drawing on decades of journal entries and academic research to assemble texts that challenge conventional memoir and academic prose. 

Professor Emerita at the University of Calgary, she has been based in London, England since 2011 where she is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Queen Mary University of London. 

Recent publications include a conversation about queer parenting (2026) with writer Hannah Silva, a creative piece at London’s Something Other (2025), and interviews with writer Caroline Bergvall (2023) and feminist theorist Clare Hemmings (2019). 

Work in progress includes Hand Over, a poetic and experimental book of creative nonfiction which emerged during a six-week Leighton Artists’ Studio Residency at Canada’s Banff Centre for the Arts in 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

new from above/ground press: pinion, by Shelly Harder

pinion
Shelly Harder
$6

sparrow

wings shed night
feathers shred light
sparrow, won’t you stay?

stay, sparrow

leave me not where bulbs burn 
leave me not where screens beam 

draw me through the skin of night
dress me in rags of light

sparrow, stay

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
April 2026
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Shelly Harder is the author of remnants, intimology, and zero dawn. They hold a doctorate from the University of Oxford and live and write in London, UK.

This is Harder’s second above/ground press title, after zero dawn (2021).

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

Jon Cone : Omnibus review : above/ground press 2025 : Jon Cone : Omnibus review : above/ground press 2025 : Sandhu, Greene, Berlatsky, Ladouceur, Kelly, Reid, Ross, Sikkema + Browne,

Canadian expat poet [and above/ground press author] Jon Cone was good enough to provide a series of first reviews, short and sketched on an array of above/ground press titles from 2025: THE TEMPORARY SPACE OF A PLACENTA, by Mandy Sandhu (2025); EL REY MURCIÉLAGO // THE BAT KING, by Yaxkin Melchy Ramos, translated by Ryan Greene (2025); Spamtoum, by Noah Berlatsky (2025); The Last Man, by Ben Ladouceur (2025); More of How to Read the Bible, by J-T Kelly (2025); cuba A book: twentieth anniversary edition, by Monty Reid (2025); AND THEN THE GENTILE LIT THE CANDLES: Seven Stories, by Stuart Ross (2025); Just a Minute, Moon's Too Loud, by Michael Sikkema (2025); and Daily Self-Portrait Valentine, by Laynie Browne (2025). Thanks so much! You can see the original post here. Or read, below:

Here are some brief reviews of my favorite titles issued by Above/Ground Press during the year 2025. While I was not asked to write any of these reviews, I will state for the purpose of full disclosure that I was published by this press in 2025 and will appear as a co-author of another title in 2026. 

THE TEMPORARY SPACE OF A PLACENTA by Mandy Sandhu

This is a wonderful collection. Sandhu’s poems are characterized by their concision, allusiveness, a leaping of imagery and wit. The voice behind the poetry suggests great intelligence and familiarity with various poetic traditions. Reading Sandhu’s poems, I thought of Ted Berrigan’s Sonnets. Then reading her bio at the back of the chapbook I was pleased to note Sandhu listed Berrigan as influence. A superb collection.

EL REY MURCIÉLAGO THE BAT KING by 
Yaxkin Melchy Ramos [tr. Ryan Greene]

This work appears to combine various forms and traditions – Surrealism, Concrete (Visual) Poetry, Mythology, Science Fiction – and doubtless others – into a contemporary hybrid that veers between poetry and prose. If you ask your poetry to break down barriers, then this is a chapbook you’ll find rewarding. An added felicity: it is bilingual so you can compare English translation to Spanish original.  Experimental in the best sense.

SPAMTOUM by Noah Berlatsky

This title contains one long poem of 95 stanzas of four-lines each, the titular “Spamtoum”, and a final poem “Hi Noah”. ‘Spamtoum’ with its repeating lines expands the pantoum form. Because I enjoy form, I set out to trace the pattern, then gave up at a certain point because it dawned on me the pattern itself was incidental to the feverish language play taking place before me. Much like John Ashbery’s sestina “Farm Implements and Rutagagas in a Landscape”, Berlatsky’s unfurling of the pantoum is intended to be gloriously screwball. Spam is where language goes to die. Here it is rescued, given oxygen, and a second chance. If you enjoy poetry that delights in language, then “Spamtoum” is ideal reading. 

THE LAST MAN by Ben Ladouceur

Ben Ladouceur writes elegant, well-crafted poems. His poetic imagination is considerable; his evident care with line and stanza enviable. Thus it is impossible for me to read a poem by Ladouceur and not be impressed by both form and content, as if those aspects can ever be fully separated, because his writing achieves its results with apparent effortlessness. He is a poet in full control of his gifts for the poetic art. (Color me envious.)  A brilliant collection.

MORE OF HOW TO READ THE BIBLE by J-T Kelly

Kelly writes poems that deal with his religious life, much like Franz Wright did. And like Wright, Kelly often deals with the struggle to maintain it in today’s world. Like the best love poetry, religious poetry appeals to us because it yearns to go beyond the material world toward a transcendent one. A highlight for me is Kelly’s catalog of sacred names that ends on a culminating moment; another favorite is the prose poem “Morning Exercise”, which has the profound bearing of a meditation one might encounter, say, in the journals of Thomas Merton. A serious and fine example of the art. 

cuba A book by Monty Reid (twentieth anniversary edition)

This reissue contains a brief essay by Monty Reid that describers the circumstances that prompted the writing of the original poem. Reid wrote cuba A book after a period of not-writing, and it impresses by how assured it feels.  None of that hesitancy or searching around for line or voice: from the start it is all there. I suppose that really shouldn’t surprise me, but it does.  For those familiar with Reid’s work and those who would like a good place to start: recommended.

AND THEN THE GENTILE LIT THE CANDLES by Stuart Ross

Stuart Ross is a poet who also writes a great deal of fiction. He’s a wonderful fiction writer. This small collection reminds me at times of Brautigan, at times of early Raymond Carver. (The Carver under the influence of Lish.) In his economy of language, Ross calls to mind another great Canadian short story writer: Norman Levine. The title story is a fine one; however, my personal favorite is “Meredith and Craig Sit in Their Kitchen and Play Stringed Instruments.” In that story you get an ending with a palpable sense of what music critic Greil Marcus called ‘that old weird America’ – a voice haunted, distant, haunting. An excellent collection.  

JUST A MINUTE, MOON’S TOO LOUD by Michael Sikkema

A concise poetry that pays homage to the natural world, the world encountered at the edge of a hike or in a moment of jeweled awareness. Sikkema surely enjoys the ancient Chinese masters, and I’d be surprised if he didn’t enjoy writers such as Gary Snyder and Wendell Berry. There’s humor here too, light, whimsical, lovely high seeming, as this complete poem demonstrates:

fav crow
ate my
rear view

When brevity is desired, let these poems answer the need. 

DAILY SELF-PORTRAIT VALENTINE by Laynie Browne

This chapbook, at first glance, is composed of lyrics that resemble those of Emily Dickinson. That is a misleading impression to have. As Browne tells us in an author’s note these poems grew out of “a year-long durational project” in which she “made a self-portrait every day for one year.” The resulting collection enacts a quest, one where memory accompanies Browne, as the outside world of obligation seems to call to the poet in the midst of her purposeful concentrations. These self-portraits are by necessity impressionistic. It is a collection that usefully demonstrates how poetry can come out of a daily practice.  

These are other fine titles can be found here  https://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com

some author activity: Ross, Nećakov, Earl, Kemp-Gee, Crosby + Marlatt,

Stuart Ross has a new poem up at NewPoetry.ca; Lillian Nećakov has new work up at The Galway Review; Amanda Earl has a piece in the "poetry pause" series, via The League of Canadian Poets; Meghan Kemp-Gee has a poem in Paul Vermeersch’s “In the Third Sleep” series; Gregory Crosby is working an online workshop, "Speaking Through A Mask: Persona & Dramatic Monologue"; and did you see that forthcoming author Daphne Marlatt is receiving an honorary degree through the University of British Columbia this spring?

new from above/ground press: Misha Solomon’s BIODÔME: A Bestiary after Stephanie Bolster, by Misha Solomon

Misha Solomon’s BIODÔME: A Bestiary after Stephanie Bolster
Misha Solomon
$6

Southern Two-Toed Sloth

Everyone represents the self’s less attractive
features with words that seek to distract, to deflect,
to scapegoat. You may think me slow, they try to say,
or lazy, but I’m so much better than the sign
to which this sinful word now points. And here I am,
and yes I’m slow, but the effort that it takes me
to go about my selfsame days is of a scale,
a magnitude, that far exceeds the limits placed
by semantics. There is no animal called lust,
called pride, called wrath, called greed. And if there were a beast
called gluttony, I’d envy them their liberty.
Nature rewards profligacy, in the short term.
I know not what it rewards in the long—my pace
implies perdurance, but I live no more for it.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
April 2026
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

This title is literally a response to Montreal poet Stephanie Bolster's chapbook BIODÔME (above/ground press 2006). A twentieth anniversary edition of BIODÔME, with a new introduction by Misha Solomon (above/ground press), appeared earlier this week.

cover credit: Naomie Hadida

Misha Solomon is a homosexual poet in and of Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. His work has twice appeared in Best Canadian Poetry and in journals across Canada. He is a student in Concordia’s Interdisciplinary PhD program. His debut full-length collection, My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet, appeared with Brick Books in March 2026. Misha Solomon’s Biodôme: A Bestiary after Stephanie Bolster is his third chapbook.

This is Solomon’s second above/ground press title, after FLORALS (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