above/ground press will be at Meet the Presses' Indie Literary Market in Toronto, Nov 16 2019!

some author activity: Birchard, mclennan, Tracy, Notley, Schmaltz + Rosenthal,

Guy Birchard has a new poem in the "Tuesday poem" series over at the dusie blog; rob mclennan has had two poems up at Stride magazine here, and here; forthcoming author Dale Tracy is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; above/ground press authors Alice Notley and Eric Schmaltz (among others) will have work included in the next edition of Best American Experimental Writing; and Sarah Rosenthal has new work in ELDERLY #30.

new from above/ground press: disrobing iris, by Mary Kasimor

disrobing iris
Mary Kasimor
$5

disrobing iris 

the vase enslaved a      repetition of roses

                       placed away from a     field            

               iris dies

   a bird’s logic grips the ceaseless      function door

        the       purple in     a white room

                              the primal sky         is meat

        red is another        chance at life

                   it is     another joke

        no one should disrobe     iris

                     as there never was        perfection

breath                     happens     is a mix up

glass cutting                 edges repeat following

                  another row of stones

         makes it impossible to meet     reaction

crushed spiders         bundled on a treadmill

                              water stains

succumbing to eyes                    blue              

         bulk snow                 on the corner lot

roots of pi          collapse in the middle

        sky blue soup writes itself     a recipe

and pure          thoughts

devising knives                forks

       beyond the         spiritual means eating

all that      blood             made an ancient birth

trees spy on            the rings of saturn

      motion a magic reflex        producing us

fallen bread            on       the titanic grows

           tender mold

disputes the seating arrangements      if it

       were the ocean      rows of 16 ounce cans       

                propped up                        the cult

an installment of shoes        a purity in

                the                  flickering circus

 

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

Mary Kasimor, who has been writing poetry for many years, considers her work experimental. Her recent poetry collections are The Landfill Dancers (BlazeVox Books 2014), Saint Pink (Moria Books 2015), The Prometheus Collage (Locofo Press 2017), and Nature Store (Dancing Girl Press 2017). Her poetry has been published in many journals, including Word For/Word, Touch the Donkey, Posit, Human Repair Kit, Arteidolia (collaboration with Susan Lewis), and Otoliths.

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

the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize longlist: Stephanie Bolster + Franco Cortese,

above/ground press authors Stephanie Bolster and Franco Cortese are among the thirty-three writers included in the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize longlist! Hooray! Stephanie Bolster is the author of the above/ground press chapbooks Three Bloody Words (1996), Biodome (2006), Three Bloody Words: Twentieth Anniversary Edition (2016) and Ghosts (2017), and was also included in the 2012 shortlist and the 2017 longlist! Franco Cortese is the author of, among other items, the 2019 above/grond press chapbook uoiea. Congratulations to all! And good luck!

some author activity: mclennan, Prime, Robinson, Caple + Trivedi,

rob mclennan has a new poem in the 'poetry pause' series via The League of Canadian Poets; Tom Prime has an essay celebrating forty years of Proper Tales Press; Ben Robinson is interviewed over at Train : a poetry journal; R.M. Vaughan interviewed Natalee Caple for This magazine; and Amish Trivedi has a new essay in the "Talking Poetics" series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter.

new from above/ground press: Retreat Diary 2019, by Margaret Christakos

Retreat  Diary  2019
Margaret Christakos
$5

as  if  repeating  the  same  song  is  a  decent
strategy  for  building  a  blue  nest  in  thin  air
Nest  that  has  found  its  mourning  in  me
Mourning  that  has  turned  on  a  lathe  like
a  long  pull-whistle  carved  in  a  small  shop
by  someone  who  had  no  grandchild  to
apprentice  &  lake  contains  the  recording
technology  to  archive  the  young  gull's  song
which  is  hysterical  by  now,  which  is  full-out
incessant,  turbulent,  frightened,  hastened,
breath-parched,  adhesive,  hopeful,  hopeless,
hope-filled,  hope-gutted,  bathed  in  hope,
drowned  in  itself  yet  delivered  to
acoustic  sky  with  muscular  chest-bobs
&  a  rotational  tour  of  the  bay's  gloss     /

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

Margaret Christakos is the author of ten collections of poetry, a novel & an intergenre memoir. She performs digital photo circuits on social media to think about the poetics of direct and indirect address. Recent books include Multitudes (Coach House) and Her Paraphernalia: On Motherlines, Sex/Blood/Loss & Selfies (Book*Hug) as well as the chapbook Social Medea vs. Virtual Medusa (Gap Riot Press). Two collections are forthcoming: charger (Talon Books) and Dear Birch (Palimpsest Press). She hails from Sudbury ON & lives in Toronto.

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: Ross, Claxton, Baus, Johnson, Gold + Perry,

some of Stuart Ross' poems have been translated into Russian; Dana Claxton has won the Hnatyshyn Foundation's $25,000.00 prize for outstanding achievement by a Canadian mid-career artist; Eric Baus is interviewed over at Neon Pajamas; Chris Johnson has a short poem, after Artie Gold, with a couple of interview questions, online at Canadian Literature; and Paul Perry has an article in the Irish Times on writing a children's novel.