new from above/ground press: VALEDICTIONS, three essays by Guy Birchard

VALEDICTIONS
Three essays by Guy Birchard
on William Hawkins, Ray ("Condo") Tremblay and Artie Gold
$5

Hawkins was the capital's chief charismatic in the early 1960s, that's a fact. Even before I knew he was a poet, even before I would've much cared, aged fourteen or so, ogling fetish objects, guitars I could no more afford than play, down the Treble Clef basement on Bank Street worked Hawkins, drawing attention away from the Gibsons and Guilds and Martins somehow upon himself. 

Then when I was sixteen and fin-de-siècle Ernest Dowson finally turned me on to verse, there was Hawkins, the first and sole livin'-breathin' parish poet already on my radar.

I've bought and sold a hundred thousand books in my time but I keep The Poems of Ernest Dowson (London: John Lane, the Bodley Head, 1919; eighth edition) with Aubrey Beardsley's gilt decorative green buckram boards, filched (for shame) from the Ottawa Public Library, and Hawkins' first six titles. I had Hawkins, Poems 1963-1965 (Ottawa: Nil Press, 1966) memorized without trying, I read it so many times in high school. Got it, of course, at Shirley Leishman Books on Gilmour Street. Saw Two Longer Poems: The Seasons of Miss Nicky by Harry Howith & Louis Riel by William Hawkins (Toronto: Patrician Press, 1965) on C.C.J. Bond's bookshelf out at his house and that impressed me enough that I went and got a copy and hand-lettered the unprinted spine in red ink just the way C.C.J. had his. Quickly scored Shoot Low Sheriff, They're Riding Shetland Ponies! Poems 1959-1964 (no place: no press, 1964) and Ottawa Poems (Kitchener: Weed/flower Press, 1966). How fascinated I was that year by the televised, crude, mock-Gjon Mili proto-rock-video of the "Young Man of the Year" moodily reading Ottawa Poems from CJOH studios. (In about 1970, the first press I ever submitted a callow book-length manuscript to was Weed/flower—because it had published Ottawa Poems.) Much later, I tried to sell a duplicate copy to a pre-eminent Ottawa second-hand book dealer. Hawkins' stock was so low circa 1990 that that dealer wasn't interested, at any price. Couldn't give it to him... Wouldn't be that way anon. John Oughton (go on, say the brother's name) gifted me with a review copy of The Gift of Space, Selected Poems 1960-1970 (Toronto: new press, 1971) that he wasn't going to tend to, in which is to be read disturbingly, concentrated for a cold eye to assess, the self-sabotage that cancels artistic progress. (I myself saw the inside of the Donwood Institute, hired as part of a control group testing varying dosages of antihistamine in the treatment of barbiturate freaks and alcoholics. Where sagged Hawkins in therapy in the commissary.) And lastly, I was given one of the twenty-eight signed copies of The Madman's War (Ottawa: S.A.W. Publications, 1974) by its esteemed printer, Cam Christie. All shall remain safe in my possession as long as I live.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
September 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Guy Birchard: I am by birth a deracinated Canadian: Don't panic, stalwart sons—no fault of mother's, no foul of father's—don't jump to conclusions, gentle maidens. The issue is unremitting agon and zero-sum. Reason not the conundrum. 

Cigarette Cards (Vermont: Longhouse, 2009), Further than the Blood (Boston: Pressed Wafer, 2010), Hecatomb (Brooklyn: Pressed Wafer, 2017), Aggregate: retrospective (Bristol: Shearsman Books, 2018), Only Seemly (St. John's: Pedlar Press, 2019).

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

Stuart Ross wins the 2019 Harbourfront Festival Prize

above/ground press author Stuart Ross has been announced as the winner of the 2019 Harbourfront Festival Prize! Congratulations, Stuart! above/ground press has been fortunate enough to publish two (so far) Stuart Ross titles: ESPESANTES (2018) and NINETY TINY POEMS (2019), both of which are, of course, still in print. And have you seen the Forty Proper Tales blog, celebrating Ross and his forty years of continuous activity as an editor/publisher through Proper Tales Press? Oh, and I should mention we're part of a roundtable discussion on small press activity at Harbourfront together on October 26th (will we see you there?). As the press release for the prize (which you can find here) reads:

2019 Prize Winner

The 2019 Harbourfront Festival Prize, which includes a $10,000 cash prize, was awarded to Canadian poet, editor and small press activist Stuart Ross. Author of 20 books of poetry, fiction and essays, Ross is a founding member of the Meet The Presses collective, has taught writing workshops across the country and was the 2010 Writer-in-Residence at Queen’s University. He's the winner of, among others, the 2017 PoetryNOW: Battle of the Bards competition, the 2017 Jewish Literary Award for Poetry and the 2010 ReLit Award for Short Fiction. Ross' micro-press, Proper Tales, is in its 40th year.

A jury composed of Quill & Quire's Alison Jones, Toronto Star's Books Editor Deborah Dundas and the Director of the Toronto International Festival of Authors Geoffrey E. Taylor was tasked with awarding the 2019 Prize to Ross.

About the Prize

Established in 1984, the Harbourfront Festival Prize (C$10,000) is presented annually in recognition of an author's contribution to the Canadian literature community, based on the merits of their own published work and/or the time they have invested cultivating the next generation of voices. The recipient is selected by a jury process and presented with the Prize during the Toronto International Festival of Authors every October.
Past Winners

2018 Lee Maracle

2017 Joseph Kertes

2016 Miriam Toews

2015 Avie Bennett

2014 Margaret MacMillan

2013 Alice Munro

2012 Austin Clarke

2011 Seth

2010 Peter Robinson

2009 Helen Humphreys

2008 Wayson Choy

2007 Christopher Dewdney

2006 Dionne Brand

2005 Guy Vanderhaeghe

2004 Jane Urquhart

2003 Linda Spalding

2002 Paul Quarrington

2001 Daniel David Moses

2000 Victor Coleman

1999 Matt Cohen

1998 Marty Gervais

1997 Ken Gass

1996 Timothy Findley

1995 Douglas George Fetherling

1994 M.G. Vassanji

1993 Graeme Gibson

1992 Alberto Manguel

1991 Nicole Brossard

1990 Howard Engel

1989 Tomson Highway

1988 Michael Ondaatje

1987 Barry Callaghan

1986 Margaret Atwood

1985 John Robert Colombo

1984 Dennis Lee

new from above/ground press: Hearing Loss, by Susanne Dyckman

Hearing Loss
Susanne Dyckman
$5

Ash, posy, shroud.  The looming shadow grief casts.  Grief as a geode.  Morning, mourning, confusion. An utterance to distinguish.

Deny, decipher, demand.  M sounds, D sounds.   Swallowing air, gulping vowels. Wait for the inevitable.  Forestall.

To spell is to write, to spell is to cast magic.  Tossed everywhere, confetti of words.  The spell is the naming.  I whisper the name, an invocation, invitation.  The need to repeat.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
September 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Susanne Dyckman’s most recent collection of poetry is A Dark Ordinary (Furniture Press Books). She is also the author of equilibrium’s form (Shearsman Books) and three chapbooks, Counterweight, Transiting Indigo, and Source. Her work has been published in a variety of journals, and a new chapbook written in collaboration with Elizabeth Robinson from Dancing Girl Press. She has co-edited both Five Fingers Review and Instance Press, and for a number of years hosted the Evelyn Ave. reading series. She lives and writes in Albany, California.

This is Dyckman’s second above/ground press chapbook, after Source (2014).

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: Waldrop, Clayton + mclennan

Rosmarie Waldrop has some new work in La Vague Journal; Conyer Clayton is interviewed by Shazia Hafiz Ramji for the Invisible Publishing blog; and rob mclennan writes on Stuart Ross and his Proper Tales Press over at the Forty Proper Tales blog.

new from above/ground press: THE TASMANIAN DEVIL & other poems: Twentieth Anniversary Edition, by John Newlove

THE TASMANIAN DEVIL & other poems
Twentieth Anniversary Edition
John Newlove
with an introduction by J.A. Weingarten
$5

IT’S WINTER IN OTTAWA

The streets are full of overweight corporals,
of sad grey computer captains, the impedimentia
of a capital city, struggling through the snow.

There is a cold gel on my belly, an instrument
is stroking it incisively, the machine
in the half-lit room is scribbling my future.

It is not illegal to be unhappy.
A shadowy technician says alternately,
Breathe, and, You may stop now.
It is not illegal to be unhappy.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
September 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

originally published in an edition of 300 copies by above/ground press, September 1999 as John Newlove's final publication of new work, after The Night the Dog Smiled (ECW Press, 1986).

The publisher wishes to thank Susan Newlove, and the estate of John Newlove for permission to reissue this title.

John Newlove (1938-2003) was born and raised in Saskatchewan. He began publishing while working various jobs in Vancouver in the 1960s. His many honours included the 1972 Governor General’s Award for his book Lies, and the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild Founders’ Award. His works have been internationally published and translated. His posthumous collection, A Long Continual Argument: The Selected Poetry of John Newlove, edited by Robert McTavish with an Afterword by Jeff Derksen, appeared through Chaudiere Books in 2007, and is now available through Invisible Publishing.

J.A. Weingarten is a Professor of Language and Liberal Studies at Fanshawe College. His first book, Sharing the Past, was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2019. He is currently completing work on The Selected Letters of John Newlove.

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: An Ecology of the Void, by Ben Meyerson

An Ecology of the Void
Ben Meyerson
$5

Sonic Metamorphosis
Let bloodlet meatflank rinse
its wet into bankless river –
haunchsweat to gather strain
in refrain amid bereaved lather:
set leaves/petals atop brick
and rub till plastered;
regret twigwise and clockward;
repent guise repent words; capsize
in esophabile in forced acid
of grammar habile in panicked
skidhammer till worse and
worse; to grouse for food
to grouse for love to
river-douse it to grouse
for digging to reach
an above and so to begin
and so to set out with
heaped speech like glottal hatchlings
to cheep nestbound for snitched insects
to snatch ourselves away –
to beseech to beseech to beseech.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
September 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Ben Meyerson holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota, and currently splits his time between Toronto, Canada and Granada, Spain. He is the author of two previous chapbooks: In a Past Life, which was published by The Alfred Gustav Press, and Holcocene, which was published by Kelsay Books. His poems, translations and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in several journals, including Great River Review, Epignosis Quarterly (via Black Herald Press), The Inflectionist Review, Decoys #1: Spectral Revelries, Rust+Moth and Pidgeonholes.

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: Koss, Earl + Barwin,

Did I mention that Zane Koss (left) was in town recently? It was nice to be able to hand him his new above/ground press title in person. We enjoyed drinks and a spot of food at my most favourite tavern. Also: Amanda Earl's "The Power of Poetry" essay is now up at The Poetry Question; and Gary Barwin is interviewed in the Wombwell Rainbow Interviews series (but you already knew all of that, right?)