some author activity: Blades, Pirie, Massey, McElroy, mclennan, Clayton + Polyck-O'Neill,

Joe Blades has a new poem on the Chaudiere Books blog as part of #NationalPoetryMonth, as does Pearl Pirie, Karen Massey and Gil McElroy; rob mclennan has a poem in the Poetry Pause series via The League of Canadian Poets; forthcoming author Conyer Clayton is interviewed over at Train : a poetry journal, and has new work at talking about strawberries all of the time; and Julia Polyck-O'Neill is also interviewed over at talking about strawberries all of the time.

new from above/ground press: running commentary along the bottom of the tapestry, by Kimberly Campanello

running commentary along the bottom of the tapestry
Kimberly Campanello
$5

they didn’t expect


hedges steeples the time it takes
to cut away the chutes purpling
lips down the promenade past
nations stepping forward fire
blocking fire important speech
looped in a darkened room
hardy sightseers in rainproof
jackets everlasting bunkers
farmers or farmers wives or
farmers children blown
up mundane tasks running
commentary along the bottom
of the tapestry build up
of bodies where do we go
when we die the lovers
eating their crêpes her
outrageously classy flowers
their rolling cigarettes like sex

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
in part for the author’s participation in the TEXT/SOUND/PERFORMANCE: Making in Canadian Space conference at University College Dublin, Ireland, April 25-27, 2019.
https://textsoundperformance.wordpress.com/
April 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

cover image: The Fall and Redemption of Man:  The Embrace of Joachim and Anne at the Golden Gate, 1515. Albrecht Altdorfer (German, c. 1480-1538). Woodcut; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland 1932.330.5

Kimberly Campanello’s poetry books include Consent, Strange Country and Imagines (both on the sheela-na-gig stone carvings), and Hymn to Kālī (her version of the Karpūrādi-stotra). Her poems have appeared most recently in Banshee, Blackbox Manifold, para·text, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Wales, and in Laudanum Publishing’s Chapbook Anthology Volume Two. MOTHERBABYHOME, 796 poems on the St Mary’s Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Ireland, is out with zimZalla Avant Objects in April 2019. In 2018, Kimberly joined the University of Leeds and the University of Leeds Poetry Centre as Programme Leader for Creative Writing. She lives in York, UK. www.kimberlycampanello.com

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 at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

new from above/ground press: Tag & Run: Canto One, by Stephen Cain

Tag & Run: Canto One
Stephen Cain
$4

1.

No! I am not Madame Cezanne
Nor was meant to be

Those wine bottles in your neighbour’s garden
Have they begun to sprout?

The Art of Work in the Age
Of Mechanical Oppression

A future right turn
Overwhelm your comfort zone

A lyric in flight

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
in part for the author’s participation in the TEXT/SOUND/PERFORMANCE: Making in Canadian Space conference at University College Dublin, Ireland, April 25-27, 2019.
https://textsoundperformance.wordpress.com/
April 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Cover image by Cyan Cain (ca. 2007)

Stephen Cain is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently False Friends (Book*hug, 2017). Tag & Run: Canto One is his fourth chapbook from above/ground, following Zoom (2013), Hijinks: A Sequence from Double Helix (with Jay MillAr, 2003) and Circa Diem (1997). He lives in Toronto where he teaches Canadian and avant-garde literature at York University.

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 at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: Campos, Cortese, Earl, Mangold, fitzpatrick + Etherin,

forthcoming above/ground press author Isabel Sobral Campos has an essay up at my (small press) writing day; Franco Cortese has new poems and a statement as part of rob mclennan's Spotlight series; Amanda Earl has new work in talking about strawberries all of the time, as do Sarah Mangold and ryan fitzpatrick, where Anthony Etherin is also interviewed.

new from above/ground press: COLLECTIONS-14, by Kyle Kinaschuk

COLLECTIONS-14
Kyle Kinaschuk
$5

[collection-009]

& once more through a wounded sonnet blows
a little room for breath now swollen late
although each line i pluck is broken, parched,
bruised.
& you’re july summer dead at 26 
the boilermaker with the face tattoo
who i got used to seeing at sunrise 
exhaling those leaden calgary months
our ritual silent ash inventories
after loss blossomed to a dull litany.
there’s nothing monumental about it
the slow, ordinary life of mourning, but 
i apostrophize dead friends now because i’m not capable—
the white towel beneath my father’s jaw.  

when you have washed the face,
close the mouth
before the body starts to stiffen.
if the mouth will not stay shut,
place a rolled-up towel or washcloth under the chin.
if this does not provide enough support
to keep the mouth closed,
use a light-weight, smooth fabric scarf.
place the middle of the scarf at the top of the head,
wrapping each end around the side of the face,
under the chin and up to the top of the head
where it can be gently tied.
these supports will become unnecessary
in a few hours and can be removed.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
in part for the author’s participation in the TEXT/SOUND/PERFORMANCE: Making in Canadian Space conference at University College Dublin, Ireland, April 25-27, 2019.
https://textsoundperformance.wordpress.com/
April 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Cover Photo by Clarke Kinaschuk 2013

Kyle Kinaschuk is a PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of Toronto, where he researches the politics and form of lament in contemporary poetry situated within Canada. His poetry has appeared in journals such as The Capilano Review, filling Station, PRISM international, The Puritan, Hart House Review, Poetry is Dead, and FreeFall Magazine.

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 at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

new from above/ground press: The Ghosts of Barnacullia, by Paul Perry

The Ghosts of Barnacullia
Paul Perry
$5

To a Ghost

We sit in the room. We talk. It is my life you describe.
You say it is your own. Tell me again how it was.

The rain is lashing. Your handwriting uneven.

The other details you maintain are unimportant.

Talk about the moonlight then. In your childhood. It was thin as blood.

It was never there.

So sleep – whose kiss is this on your hot forehead?
Whose kiss?
So sleep –

There is a noise from downstairs. Imagine your mother baking.
It is not her. Or your father singing.

It is not him.

Downstairs, while you sleep or try to sleep, is something else.

It matters what you call it.

It matters that you can. So speak to me again of your life.
It is mine as well.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
in part for the author’s participation in the TEXT/SOUND/PERFORMANCE: Making in Canadian Space conference at University College Dublin, Ireland, April 25-27, 2019.
https://textsoundperformance.wordpress.com/
April 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Cover image: Bláithín de Poire

Paul Perry is the author of 5 full length collections of poetry including Gunpowder Valentine: New and Selected Poems, and two pamphlets of poetry. A recent recipient of the Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship, and co-author to 4 Karen Perry best-sellers, including the Penguin published The Innocent Sleep. He is Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at UCD. 

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 at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

new from above/ground press: For a Poetry of Blot, by Gregory Betts

For a Poetry of Blot
Gregory Betts
$4

Ink the beginning

was pure

        all was o

then came the pen

   pushing the mess

 into runes

     ruses

    us

we born in that alphablot

linked in a march of

morphing letters

  like connections

every word a nepotism

a conjugation of primal ink

writing is erasure

until the line of I returns to

its perfect dot

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
in part for the author’s participation in the TEXT/SOUND/PERFORMANCE: Making in Canadian Space conference at University College Dublin, Ireland, April 25-27, 2019.
https://textsoundperformance.wordpress.com/
April 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Gregory Betts is the author of seven books of poetry, including If Language and The Others Raisd in Me. He has written Avant-Garde Canadian Literature: The Early Manifestations and is co-editor (with Christian Bök) of Avant Canada: Poets, Prophets, Revolutionaries. He is the Craig Dobbin Professor of Canadian Studies at University College Dublin, where he lives with his family.

This is Gregory Betts’ fifth above/ground press title, after The Cult of David Thompson (2005), The Curse of Canada (2008), Who Let the Mice in Brion Gysin (2014) and Signs of Our Discontent (with Arnold McBay, 2018). He also appeared in the four poet anthology READ YORK (2004).

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 at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com