above/ground press at the ottawa small press book fair: tomorrow!

Don't forget to come visit us at the ottawa small press book fair tomorrow! We have plenty of new and forthcoming titles (as you well know), and if you subscribe to above/ground press before November 1st, you'll start immediately, and receive our new titles by Rae Armantrout, Carrie Olivia Adams and Hailey Higdon! And of course, the pre-fair reading tonight at The Carleton Tavern, hosted by The Factory Reading Series!

new from above/ground press: An Overture in the Key of F, by Carrie Olivia Adams

An Overture in the Key of F

Carrie Olivia Adams

$4

To hold in trust. It is intimate and financial. Between fidelity and fudicial is a nervous, fussy movement of your hands and a coined error. Field quickly becomes battle, which is not something my mother told me when we moved to the farm. The visible space, the space on which something is drawn or projected, the place where this information goes. Your fidgeting mitt, you’re ready to field it.

A day of maneuvers and a day of pleasure. This demon, addict, excessive fiend. Given to fighting, to flame. Once I was fifteen, like all of you, a similar coupling between tractor and trail, burdensome trifle, an often repetitive pattern, a series of movements in name only.

Made incandescent by the passage of an electrical current—to feed, satiate, make out, make whole—to fill those shoes, I cannot go back. On the course, by the wind, the fillip of your thumb. Filmland and filmdom, both gauzy in my sleep, corrupts.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press

October 2013

a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Carrie Olivia Adams née Ferguson sometimes misses her old initial. She lives in Chicago, where she edits poetry for Black Ocean, publicizes books for the University of Chicago Press, and bakes biscuits to a post-metal soundtrack. She is the author of Intervening Absence (Ahsahta Press 2009) and Forty-One Jane Doe’s (book and DVD, Ahsahta 2013).

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 [NEW ADDRESS!] or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

The Lampman Award Shortlist + Diana Brebner Prize reading, October 17, 2013

The annual Archibald Lampman Award shortlist reading happens in Ottawa on Thursday, October 17, 2013 at Raw Sugar Cafe (692 Somerset W., Ottawa) at 7:30pm, with readings by the authors of the three shortlisted works: Christine McNair, Conflict (BookThug), Nina Berkhout, elseworlds (Seraphim) and E. Russell Smith, Petroglyph Beach (The RightEyedDeer Press). The evening will also feature a reading by recent Diana Brebner Award winner and above/ground press author Marilyn Irwin.

The 2013 Archibald Lampman Award will be presented on October 22, at the Shenkman Arts Centre, in conjunction with the City of Ottawa Book Awards.

JM Francheteau reviews Brecken Hancock's The Art of Plumbing (2013)

Our pal JM Francheteau was good enough to review Brecken Hancock's The Art of Plumbing (2013) over at his blog. This is actually the third review for her chapbook, after Michael Dennis [see his review here] and Ryan Pratt [see his review here]. Thanks, JM! See the original review here.

some author activity: Paige, Ladoueur, Poe, Robertson + The Factory Reading Series,

Abby Paige has a new essay, "On the Invention of Writing," posted as part of the "On Writing" series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter; Ben Ladouceur is interviewed by Ruckus Readings; Deborah Poe writes on Megan Burns, and Lisa Roberston writes on John Clare, over at Lemonhound; and Pearl Pirie was good enough to post a report on the recent Factory Reading Series event with Dale Smith, Hoa Nguyen and Mari-Lou Rowley.

new from above/ground press: The State In Which, by Hailey Higdon

The State In Which

Hailey Higdon

$4

March

The damn directions--the fact of hills, curves, can’t quite be mapped. In the blackest minutes I grow more sterile while everyone else is starting to wake up, shaking branches, bugs stick. If this were a situation with a hostage the police would be pointing their guns giving the motion calm down without the action to accompany it. There is a wild rose called lady banks which opens colors patchy but explicit on the fences around.

I woke up to a mirror. It was already March, things were in bloom, I could hear them. I wanted their motion to be bidirectional to me just like when someone says happy birthday to me my instinct is to always want it to be bidirectional, to say, “Happy birthday to you too!”

My professor would call me one of the late bloomers and not because of my small boobs because making progress in a human takes longer than a season. Sometimes producing the overall sound of excitement involves periods of bootless duty to the idea of mortality.

I’ll stop there and describe my reflection. “Wake up,” it says.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press

October 2013

a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Hailey Higdon is from Nashville. She is the author of Packing (Bloof Books, 2012) and How To Grow Almost Everything (Agnes Fox, 2011).  She is friends with everyone and loves everywhere. She currently resides in Snohomish, Washington.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 [NEW ADDRESS!] or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

above/ground press at IFOA: George Elliot Clarke, Peter Norman + Christine McNair,

Okay, so perhaps that's a bit of a stretch, but three authors previously published by above/ground press are featuring in Toronto as part of the 34th annual International Festival of Authors (October 24-November 3, 2013; Toronto): Peter Norman at the Poet Summit on October 26, as well as at a second event the same day; George Elliott Clarke on November 1 and again on November 2; and Christine McNair at the Poet Summit on October 26 and again on October 27. I'll be accompanying the thirty-seven-week-pregnant McNair to our first ever IFOA. Looking forward to it!