some author activity: Graham, Hogg, Blouin, Carr, Henning + Niespodziany,

Lea Graham has a poem for Bob Hogg up at The Typescript, as does Michael Blouin; Julie Carr has new work in the first issue of atsmospheric quarterly; Barbara Henning now has an author page at Poets.org; and Benjamin Niespodziany has new work up at JMWW.

some author activity: Turnbull, Hogg, Houbolt, Armantrout, Baker + mclennan,

a videopoem by Chris Turnbull (and Robert Hogg) is now online at The Typescript; Kyla Houbolt has new work up in the Spotlight series; Rae Armantrout has a new poem online, via Poetry Magazine; Jennifer Baker recently launched her interactive poem, "Hands"; and rob mclennan has recently been announced as a Juror for the Montreal International Poetry Prize 2024!

some author activity: Unsworth, Weaver, Bell, Morton, Bowering, Hogg + mclennan,

Lydia Unsworth has a poem up as part of the Tuesday poem series; Andy Weaver is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Wade Bell, Colin Morton, George Bowering and others all have new pieces as part of the "Remembering Bob Hogg" feature at The Typescript; and rob mclennan answers one question for Hollay Ghadery at River Street Writing.

some author activity: Armantrout, Hyland, mclennan, Jirgens, Hogg, Logan + Anstee,

Rae Armantrout and MC Hyland have new work in Copenhagen Lit; the audio for the interview RC Weslowski and Kevin Spenst did with rob mclennan for Wax Poetic is now online; Karl Jirgens reflects on Robert Hogg in The Typescript; Nate Logan has three poems up at cul-de-sac-of-blood; and Cameron Anstee has a piece on book culling at The Richler Literary Project.

A (Vancouver) Reading in Memory of Bob Hogg : February 12, 2023

The Factory Reading Series: a Covid-era memorial,

at The Carleton Tavern (upstairs)
233 Armstrong Avenue (at Parkdale Market)
Friday, January 13, 2023
doors 7pm, reading 7:30pm
lovingly hosted by rob mclennan,

Comprised as a group memorial for poets lost during the Covid-era, there will be readings and recollections by Cameron Anstee, Rhonda Douglas, James Moran, natalie hanna, rob mclennan, AJ Dolman, Chris Johnson, Chris Turnbull, Stephen Brockwell, Bardia Sinaee, Anita Lahey, Monty Reid and others on numerous poets we've been unable to properly memorialize over this period of pandemic isolation, including: Robert Hogg, Phyllis Webb, Douglas Barbour, Michael Dennis, Steven Heighton, Clare Latremouille, Joe Blades, Richard Sanger, Peter Van Toorn, David Donnell, RM (Richard) Vaughan, Brian Fawcett etc (if there's a Covid-era poet-loss you wish to memorialize at the event, please let me know at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail (dot) com

This event will also mark not only the thirtieth anniversary of The Factory Reading Series (the first event held on Lisgar Street at the late lamented Stone Angel Institute in January 1993) but will see the publication of an accompanying issue of The Peter F Yacht Club.
See last year's virtual issue here
and information on the prior year's stay-at-home issue here

some author activity: fitzpatrick, Johnson, Pirie, Boyle, Turnbull + Hogg,

TIA House presents a podcast conversation between ryan fitzpatrick and Nikki Reimer; Chris Johnson has a new piece up at Shrapnel magazine; Pearl Pirie conducts a mini-interview with Frances Boyle; Elee Kraljii Gardiner and Chris Turnbull are collaboratively interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and Matthew Friedman writes a small piece remembering Robert Hogg.

some author activity: Mangold, Saklikar, Hogg + mclennan,

Sarah Mangold has new work up at 128 Lit; Renée Sarojini Saklikar has a poem up in the poetry pause series via The League of Canadian Poets; and Robert Hogg has a poem up at Pamenar Press; and did I mention I now have a substack that focuses on in-progress prose?

Robert Hogg (March 26, 1942 – November 13, 2022)

Stephen Brockwell and Robert Hogg at a Chaudiere Books launch, 2015

Mountain, Ontario poet, editor and mentor Robert Hogg (see my obituary for him here) has died. He was the author of, among other titles, three above/ground press chapbooks: from Lamentations (2012), from Lamentations (second (expanded) edition, 2016) and From Each Forthcoming (2021). The volume Report from the Hogg Society, Vol. 1 No. 1 (2022) landed in just enough time for him to see and respond to a digital copy. A retired Carleton University Professor and organic farmer, he was friend and mentor to generations of poets, both within and beyond the boundaries of his classroom. He will be dearly missed.

new from above/ground press: Report from the Hogg Society. Vol. 1 No. 1

Report from the Hogg Society
Vol 1. No. 1
edited by rob mclennan
$7

an assemblage of writing in response
to the work of Robert Hogg

including
poems, critical writings
and
philosophical transactions

with contributions by:
Cameron Anstee
Jennifer Baker
Gary Barwin
Michael Blouin
George Bowering
Stephen Collis
David Epstein
Lionel Kearns
Rob Manery
Daphne Marlatt
rob mclennan
Renee Rodin
Aaron Tucker
Chris Turnbull
Andy Weaver
Thomas Whyte
Grant Wilkins

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
November 2022
full list of published reports here
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Report on the Society logo by C. McNair, editor’s devil (retired)

Robert Hogg has published three chapbooks with above/ground press: from Lamentations (2012), from Lamentations (second edition) (2016) and From Each Forthcoming (2021). He also appeared online in The Peter F Yacht Club #30 : the virtual issue (December 2021).

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) 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 robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: fitzpatrick, Robertson, mclennan, O'Reilly, Hogg + Novak,

ryan fitzpatrick is interviewed on MODL Press (2000-2009); Lisa Robertson has a twitter-thread reposted on Kathryn Mockler's send my love to anyone; rob mclennan has a new poem, and is interviewed over at the Artisanal Writer; Nathanael O'Reilly has some new work up at The Loch Raven Review; Robert Hogg has a new poem up at The Typescript; and JoAnna Novak writes on Taylor Swift and Joe Brainard over at The Paris Review.

HAL magazine, guest edited by Karl Jirgens : Bowering, Spinosa, Earl, Tucker, Davey, Hogg, Clarke, McCaffery, Betts, beaulieu, Rogal, Hall, Lynes, Nećakov, mclennan, Barwin, Arnott, Ross + Norris,

In case you haven't seen, above/ground press author Karl Jirgens guest-edited the fourteenth anniversary issue of Hamilton Arts and Letters, and included work by a whole ton of folk, including numerous (current and former) above/ground press authors! Why not check out the issue as a whole? Or check out the specific submissions by George Bowering, Dani Spinosa, Amanda Earl, Aaron Tucker, Frank Davey, Robert Hogg, George Elliott Clarke, Steve McCaffery, Gregory Betts, derek beaulieu, Stan Rogal, Phil Hall, Jeanette Lynes, Lillian Nećakov, rob mclennan, Gary Barwin, Joanne Arnott, Stuart Ross and Ken Norris! And there are bunches of others as well! So you really have to check out the issue as a whole, really.

some author activity: Deutch, Tate, fitzpatrick, Hyland + Hogg,

Amanda Deutch has new work up at house journal; Bronwen Tate has a new poem up at the Chaudiere Books blog, as part of National Poetry Month, as does ryan fitzpatrick ; MC Hyland has some new work up at Solstice: a magazine of diverse voices; and Robert Hogg has a new poem up in the "Tuesday poem" series over at dusie.

The Peter F Yacht Club #30 : the virtual issue,

I know the holidays just aren’t the same without our usual Peter F. Yacht Club Christmas party/reading/regatta, set between Christmas and New Year’s Eve (an event I originated in 2005 for the sake of an “office Christmas party” for our informal writer’s group), but we’ll get back to that soon enough. If you are interested in such, you can see my report on the 2019 event here, the 2018 event here, the 2017 event here, the 2016 event here, the 2015 event here, the 2013 event here, the 2012 event here (there have been at least a decade’s worth of further events, but apparently I made no reports on those, save for the 2007 event). But next year, right? Until then, here is a virtual event, posted as issue #30 of The Peter F. Yacht Club [see information on the prior issue here]. We are far more than halfway out of the dark, I’d wager.

Kimberly Quiogue Andrews : “Jesus in a Prom Gown”

Kimberly Quiogue Andrews is a poet and literary critic. She is the author of A Brief History of Fruit, winner of the Akron Prize for Poetry from the University of Akron Press, and BETWEEN, winner of the New Women’s Voices Chapbook Prize from Finishing Line Press. She teaches creative writing and American literature at the University of Ottawa, and you can find her on Twitter at @kqandrews.

Susan J. Atkinson : “Reading Palms,” “The Dining Room Poem by another Poet” and “Interpreting Rothko”

Susan J. Atkinson’s poems have won a number of awards, most recently first prize in the 2019 National Capital Writers Contest and chosen as a Notable Mention in the 2020 Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse. She has new work in Grain Magazine and The Queen’s Quarterly. Her first full-length collection, The Marta Poems was published by Silver Bow Publishing in 2020 and her chapbook The Birthday Party, The Mariachi Player and The Tourist came out in Spring 2021 with Catkin Press. Visit www.susanjatkinson.com for more information.

Frances Boyle : “The whole tall world” and “Abbey”

Frances Boyle is the author of two poetry books, most recently This White Nest (2019). She has also written Tower, a Rapunzel-infused novella (2018), and Seeking Shade, a short story collection (2020) which was a first-place winner of the Miramichi Reader’s Very Best! Awards, and a finalist for the Danuta Gleed Award and the ReLit Award. Her writing has been selected for the Best Canadian Poetry series, nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and published throughout North America and internationally. Frances’s third book of poetry is forthcoming in fall 2022 with Frontenac House Press. www.francesboyle.com

Jason Christie : “Slow death”

Jason Christie lives and writes in Ottawa. He is the author of Canada Post (Invisible), i-ROBOT (Edge/Tesseract), Unknown Actor (Insomniac), and Cursed Objects (Coach House). His most recent chapbooks are: Bridge and Burn (above / ground) and Heavy Metal Litany (Model press). He is looking for a home for a new manuscript of poetry he wrote with the help of several Python scripts.

Conyer Clayton : “Family Dinner” and “Intruder,” both from But the sun, and the ships, and the fish, and the waves (Spring 2022, A Feed Dog Book by Anvil Press).

Conyer Clayton is a writer, musician, editor, and gymnastics coach living on unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe land. Her debut collection, We Shed Our Skin Like Dynamite (Guernica Editions, 2020), won an Ottawa Book Award and was a Relit Award finalist. She's released 2 albums and many chapbooks; recently, Towers (Collusion Books, 2021) by VII, of which she is a member, and Sprawl (Collusion Books, 2020) written with Manahil Bandukwala, shortlisted for the bpNichol Award. Her second book, But the sun, and the ships, and the fish, and the waves (A Feed Dog Book, Anvil Press) is forthcoming Spring 2022.

Laurie Anne Fuhr : “applicable skills of the military brat #1” and “applicable skills of the military brat #2,” from night flying (Frontenac House 2018).

Laurie Anne Fuhr, ex-Ottawan, current Calgarian, is author of night flying (Frontenac House 2018), which was shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry 2016 in ms form. Fuhr had work in several anthologies in 2021, including Uncommon Grounds: poems by the Espresso Poetry Collective (epcpress 2021); Wonder/Shift 40th Anniversary Anthology (AWCS Press 2021); and The Stroll of Poets Anthology (2021), and had a poem on a tall can with Blindman Brewing's Session Stories series (ed. Jason Lee Norman). Her poem mixed media was shortlisted in the Freefall Magazine poetry contest 2020 (Judge Gary Barwin). Her work has been published in an above/ground chapbook and in many periodicals like This Magazine, Journal of Literature and Aesthetics (India), Bywords, and Prairie Journal. Fuhr is a poetry instructor with alexandrawriters.org; its poetry workshops are now open to all on Zoom.

natalie hanna : “keep moving / keep sleeping” and “to learn of making”

natalie hanna is a queer, disabled, feminist, Middle Eastern, Ottawa-born lawyer. She runs battleaxe press, and has authored thirteen chapbooks, including three titles with above/ground press, Baseline Press (2020), and collaboratively with Liam Burke, machine dreams, from Collusion Books (2021). She is working on her first full length poetry collection. Her poetry, interviews, and commentary have been published in Canada and the U.S. Learn more: https://nhannawriting.wordpress.com.

Robert Hogg : “The Poem that Starts in the Night”

Robert Hogg was born in Edmonton, Alberta, grew up in the Cariboo and Fraser Valley in British Columbia, and attended UBC during the early Sixties where he was associated with the Vancouver TISH poets, co-edited MOTION - a prose newsletter, and graduated with a BA in English and Creative Writing. His books include: The Connexions, Berkeley: Oyez, 1966; Standing Back, Toronto: Coach House, 1972; Of Light, Toronto: Coach House, 1978; Heat Lightning, Windsor: Black Moss, 1986; There Is No Falling, Toronto: ECW,1993; and as editor, An English Canadian Poetics, The Confederation Poets – Vol. 1, Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2009. He recently published several chapbooks: from LAMENTATIONS, Ottawa: above/ground, 2016; two Cariboo poems, Ranch Days – The McIntosh from hawk/weed press in Kemptville, ON; Ranch Days—for Ed Dorn from battleaxe press (Ottawa 2019); A Quiet Affair – Vancouver ’63 (Trainwreck, May 2021); and in August 2021 a chapbook titled From Each Forthcoming (above/ground). In December 2021, a chapbook will be released from Hogwallow Press, called The Red Menace, and another from Apt 9 Press in Ottawa, called Apothegms.

Margo LaPierre : “A Video of You, Laughing” (first published in Mineral Lit Mag), “Hysterosonogram” (forthcoming 2022 in Sable Books’ disability anthology The Ending Hasn’t Happened Yet) and “Air Show” (first published in Train Journal)

Margo LaPierre is a freelance editor and author of Washing Off the Raccoon Eyes (Guernica Editions, 2017). She serves as newsletter editor of Arc Poetry Magazine and is a member of poetry collective VII. She is the winner of the 2021 Room Poetry Contest and the 2020 subTerrain Lush Triumphant Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the 2021 Fiddlehead Creative Nonfiction Contest. She is completing her MFA in Creative Writing at UBC. Find her on Twitter @margolapierre.

Gil McElroy is reading three new poems from his ongoing project, The Julian Days.

Gil McElroy is a poet currently living in Colborne, Ontario.

rob mclennan : “Autobiography of green,” “Coordinates” and “Burning the dead grass”

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 more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent poetry title, the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, 2022), is now available for pre-order. In spring 2020, he won ‘best pandemic beard’ from Coach House Books via Twitter, of which he is extremely proud (and mentions constantly). He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta.

Christine McNair : “Déjà Entendu” and “Déjà vu”

Christine McNair has published two books of poetry with Bookhug – Conflict (2012) and Charm (2017). Her most recent manuscript is a hybrid non-fiction poetry manuscript focused on preeclampsia, illness, and disability. She works as a book doctor in Ottawa. Also – she recorded this last year for Canthius but it may have been lost in the ether, much like she was lost in the Christmas tree.

Pearl Pirie : “Daily you detail weather” & “time scales mountains” are from the tentatively titled, “Well-Behaved Thistle.” If you’re a potential publisher, ask for it by name.

Pearl Pirie’s fourth poetry collection is footlights (Radiant Press, 2020). rain’s small gestures (Apt 9 Press, fall 2021) is minimalist poems. Mudflaps for Short Dogs is out from Trainwreck Press (July 2021). Interact with her at Instagram or Patreon at Pearlpiriepoet.

Monty Reid : two poems from “Playground”

Monty Reid is a damaged Ottawa poet.

Stuart Ross : “A Stephen Crane Christmas,” “Sixty-Two” and “Razovsky On The Volga”

Stuart Ross is a writer, editor, and writing teacher, the author of 20 books of fiction, poetry, and essays, and countless chapbooks and ephemera. He received the 2019 Harbourfront Festival Prize and the 2021 James Tate Poetry Prize. Stuart’s work has been translated into Nynorsk, French, Spanish, Estonian, and Russian. His most recent book is 70 Kippers, written with his dearest friend, the late Ottawa poet Michael Dennis. Stuart’s hybrid poem/essay The Book Of Grief And Hamburgers, dedicated to Michael, comes out this spring from ECW Press. He lives in Cobourg, Ontario.

Renée Sarojini Saklikar : from the Perimeter sequence in Bramah and The Beggar Boy

Renée Sarojini Saklikar is a poet and lawyer who lives in Vancouver on the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples. She is the author of four books, including the ground-breaking poetry book, children of air india, about the bombing of Air India Flight 182 which won the Canadian Authors Association Poetry Prize and is the co-author, with Dr. Mark Winston, of the poetry and essay collection, Listening to the Bees, winner of the 2019 Gold Medal Independent Publishers Book Award, Environment/Ecology. She is currently working on Book 2 of the THOT J BAP series, an epic fantasy in verse.

This poem is from the Perimeter sequence in my epic fantasy in verse, Bramah and The Beggar Boy (Nightwood Editions, 2021).

An early version of this poem, one of the first in my long poem series, https://thotjbap.com/, first appeared in a beautiful hand made chapbook by the late Marthe Reed, to whom I was introduced by rob mclennan at the Factory Reading Series in Ottawa.

Other poems from the sequence also appeared in Kathryn Mockler’s The Rusty Toque.

With gratitude for these, past and present, who support/supported long form poetry.

D.S. Stymeist : Big Ride: Passage 1” and “Tonic.”

D.S. Stymeist’s debut collection, The Bone Weir, was published by Frontenac in 2016 and was a finalist for the Canadian Author’s Association Award for Poetry. He continues to publish widely in both academic and literary magazines. Alongside fending off Crohn’s disease, he teaches creative writing and crime fiction at Carleton University. He’s the former president of VERSe Ottawa, which organizes VERSeFest, Ottawa’s international poetry festival.

On special assignment: Cameron Anstee, Stephen Brockwell, jwcurry, Anita Dolman, Amanda Earl, Lea Graham, Marilyn Irwin, Chris Johnson, Janice Tokar, Roland Prevost, Sandra Ridley and Chris Turnbull.

some author activity: Hogg, Mody, Carpenter, Earl + Niespodziany,

Robert Hogg is interviewed over at poetry mini interviews; Monica Mody is featured in Episode 223, S3 of the podcast Jazz Ready, hosted by Magdalena Gómez, Poet Laureate of Springfield, MA; J.R. Carpenter was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize; Amanda Earl writes on the artist statement, and revisiting old ones; and Benjamin Niespodziany has new work up at HAD.

some author activity: Sharp, Burgoyne, O'Reilly, Hogg + Siklosi

Travis Sharp has some new work posted as part of Echo Verse; Sarah Burgoyne has some new work at Long Con Magazine; Nathanael O'Reilly has a new poem up at Sheila-Na-Gig, and a new poem in the "Tuesday poem" series via dusie; Robert Hogg participates in the "Six Questions" interview series via Chaudiere Books; and Kate Siklosi has new work up at Osmosis.

some author activity: Konchan, Reid, Maloukis, Mody + Hogg,

Virginia Konchan has some new work up at Bennington Review; Monty Reid is interviewed over at poetry mini interviews; Rose Maloukis is the July winner of the "Arc Award of Awesomeness" from Arc Poetry Magazine; Monica Mody has some new work up at The Fabulist; and Robert Hogg has some new work (that I seem to have missed last year, when it appeared) up at BlazeVOX.

new from above/ground press: From Each Forthcoming, by Robert Hogg

From Each Forthcoming
Robert Hogg
$5

Another Way

Difficult to say how
     but the dancers

move themselves
     gesture
     
     not necessarily
to me

     nor to the music
tinkling to itself

     a flurry of notes
bare feet

     hands in a windmill
by design

     one direction
only

     the music
another way

RLH: Vanc: 1964; Rev: Mtn: 2021-03-04

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
August 2021
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Robert Hogg was born in Edmonton, Alberta, grew up in the Cariboo and Fraser Valley in British Columbia, and attended UBC during the early Sixties where he was associated with the Vancouver TISH poets, co-edited MOTION - a prose newsletter, and graduated with a BA in English and Creative Writing. In 1964 he hitchhiked east to Toronto, then visited Buffalo NY where Charles Olson was teaching. After spending a few months in NYC, Bob entered the graduate program at the State University of NY at Buffalo, completed a PhD on Olson under Robert Creeley, and took a job teaching American and Canadian Poetry at Carleton University in Ottawa for the next 38 years. His books include: The Connexions, Berkeley: Oyez, 1966; Standing Back, Toronto: Coach House, 1972; Of Light, Toronto: Coach House, 1978; Heat Lightning, Windsor: Black Moss, 1986; There Is No Falling, Toronto: ECW,1993; and as editor, An English Canadian Poetics,  The Confederation Poets – Vol. 1, Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2009. He recently published four chapbooks: from LAMENTATIONS, Ottawa: above/ground, 2016; two Cariboo poems, Ranch Days – The McIntosh from hawk/weed press in Kemptville, ON; Ranch Days—for Ed Dorn from battleaxe press (Ottawa 2019); A Quiet Affair – Vancouver ’63 (Trainwreck, May 2021). In April 2019 Hogg edited a Canadian Poetry issue of The Café Review in Portland, ME. His poems have appeared in over seventy periodicals, most recently: Pamenar Online; Empty Mirror; The Café Review; Dispatches; Arc; Some; BlazeVox Online Journal, The Typescript, Caesura, Ottawater 16, Sulfur Surrealist Jungle, Touch the Donkey and recent issues of Periodicities, Bandoneon, and Taint Taint Taint. In early July 2021 a Spoken Web podcast was presented by the UBC Kelowna Amp Lab featuring Robert Hogg’s life and career; it can be heard here. Books currently in the works for publication include: Lamentations; The Cariboo Poems; Postcards, from America; Amber Alert; Not to Call It Chaos – The Vancouver Poems; Oh Yeah—More Poems. In progress are The Offending Temple, and Ill Parodies – O, a selection of satires on various Shibboleths and current affairs. Now retired, Hogg continues to write at his organic farm in Mountain thirty-five miles south of Ottawa.

This is Hogg's third above/ground press chapbook, after from Lamentations (2012) and from Lamentations (second edition) (2016).

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) 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: Rivera, O'Reilly, Sweeney, Hogg + Tate,

Eléna Rivera has some new work up at Junction Box; Nathanael O'Reilly has some new work up at Mascara Literary Review; Heather Sweeney is interviewed by Muzique Magazine; Robert Hogg has some new work up at The Typescript, an essay on Kent Johnson up at Caesura, and is interviewed in a podcast by Craig Carpenter on his history and associations around TISH: and Bronwen Tate has new work in Court Green.

some author activity: Does, Graham, Niespodziany, O'Reilly + Hogg,

Amelia Does has new work up at where is the river; Lea Graham is interviewed on NPR radio's KUAR: Public Radio from UA Little Rock (online as a podcast); forthcoming author Benjamin Niespodziany has a new poem up in the "Tuesday poem" series; Nathanael O'Reilly has a new poem up at Olney; and Robert Hogg is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey.