2023 #AWP (unofficial) offsite (virtual) readings : day two of five: MacEachern, Heroux, Vallières, Webb + Drescher,

Furthering yesterday’s post, as part of the above/ground press thirtieth anniversary, I thought it would be both interesting and amusing to host a virtual (and unaffiliated) offsite reding as part of this year’s Association of Writers and Writing Programs annual Conference and Bookfair. I mean, offsite means offsite, right?

Jessi MacEachern (she/her) is the author of the poetry collection A Number of Stunning Attacks, as well as the chapbooks Television Poems, You Do Not Like Animal Sounds, and Ravishing the Sex into the Hold. Her new chapbook When a Folk, When a Sprawl is forthcoming with above/ground press in 2023 and her new poetry collection Cut Side Down is forthcoming with Invisible in 2025. She is the 2022–24 reviewer of Poetics for Oxford University Press’s This Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory and is currently working as an Assistant Professor in the English Department at Bishop’s University.

Jason Heroux was the Poet Laureate for the City of Kingston from 2019 to 2022. He is the author of four books of poetry: Memoirs of an Alias (2004); Emergency Hallelujah (2008); Natural Capital (2012) and Hard Work Cheering Up Sad Machines (2016). His recent books include a short fiction collection Survivors of the Hive (Radiant Press) and two poetry chapbooks: New and Selected Days (Origami Poems Project) and Something or Other (above/ground press).

William Vallières is a Montreal poet. His work has appeared in The Walrus, Best Canadian Poetry, Grain, and Event, among other places. His chapbook Poor Rutebeuf, a translation of the French medieval poet Rutebeuf, just appeared through above/ground press. His first book of poems, Versus, is out with Véhicule Press.

Lindsey Webb is the author of the chapbooks House (Ghost Proposal, 2020) and Perfumer’s Organ (above/ground press, 2023). Her writings have appeared in Chicago Review, Denver Quarterly, jubilat, and Lana Turner, among others. She lives in Salt Lake City, where she is a Steffensen Cannon fellow in the PhD program in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Utah.

Julia Drescher is the author of OPEN EPIC (Delete Press, 2017). Her above/ground chapbooks are BLATTA & Metastatic Flower (2020). She lives in Colorado.

2023 #AWP (unofficial) offsite (virtual) readings : day one of five: Witek/Lopes, Robinson, Melançon, Unrau + Chernoff,

As part of the above/ground press thirtieth anniversary, I thought it would be both interesting and amusing to host a virtual (and unaffiliated) offsite reding as part of this year’s Association of Writers and Writing Programs annual Conference and Bookfair. While I’ve never actually attended myself (being unaffiliated with any organization that might assist with funds to attend such a thing), it does seem like a pretty cool destination. An Ottawa one would be cool; should they just host an Ottawa one? Until then, I suppose, something like this might have to suffice.

US poet Terri Witek (terriwitek.com) and Brazilian visual artist Cyriaco Lopes (cyriacolopes.com) have collaborated since 2005--their works together include museum and gallery shows, performance and site-specific projects featured internationally in New York, Seoul, Miami, Crete, Manchester, Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro, and Valencia. Witek holds the Sullivan Chair in Creative Writing at Stetson University in Florida, and Lopes is an art professor at CUNY John Jay in New York City. Together they teach Poetry in the Expanded Field in Stetson’s low-residency MFA of the Americas. Their collaborative projects are represented by the liminal (Valencia Spain).

 

Jérôme Melançon writes and teaches and writes and lives in oskana kâ-asastêki / Regina, SK. His most recent chapbook is with above/ground press, Tomorrow’s Going to Be Bright (2022, after 2020’s Coup), and his most recent poetry collection is En d’sous d’la langue (Prise de parole, 2021). He has also published two books of poetry with Éditions des Plaines, De perdre tes pas (2011) and Quelques pas quelque part (2016), as well as one book of philosophy, La politique dans l’adversité (Metispresses, 2018). He has edited books and journal issues, and keeps publishing academic articles that have nothing to do with any of this. He’s on Twitter mostly, and sometimeson Instagram, both at @lethejerome.

Ben Robinson is a poet, musician and librarian. His most recent publication is Without Form from The Blasted Tree and knife | fork | book. The Book of Benjamin is forthcoming from Palimpsest Press in the fall of 2023. He has only ever lived in Hamilton, Ontario on the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas. You can find him online at benrobinson.work.

Melanie Dennis Unrau is a poet of mixed European ancestry living on Treaty 1 territory in Winnipeg. A Research Affiliate and Visiting Fellow at the University of Manitoba, also a sessional instructor at the University of Winnipeg, Melanie studies oil poetry and the poetics of just transition. She is the author of the poetry collection Happiness Threads (Muses’ Company, 2013) and the poetry chapbook The Goose (above/ground, 2023), a co-editor of Seriality and Texts for Young People: The Compulsion to Repeat (Palgrave, 2014), and a former editor of The Goose journal and Geez magazine. Her forthcoming book “The Rough Poets: Petropoetics and the Tradition of Canadian Oil-Worker Poetry” is on contract with McGill-Queen's University Press. She is working on a poetry collection, “The Goose,” a literary-critical reading of “father of the tar sands” S.C. Ells’s Northland Trails. She recently co-edited a forthcoming issue of Canadian Literature journal on “Poetics and Extraction.” Melanie was a long-time participant in the Artist Mothers’ Collective at Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art in Winnipeg; she loves collaborating with visual artists and poets. This reading was first prepared for the Late Winter Writers Online Residency at the Banff Centre in February 2023.

MLA Chernoff is a poet, performance artist, meme enthusiast, and recovering academic. Their debut full-length poetry collection, [SQUELCH PROCEDURES], was released by Gordon Hill Press in Fall 2021. MLA is also the author of several chapbooks, including delet this, TERSE THIRSTY, SCRIED FUNDAMENTS, and I'M LIKE THE GREAT GRANDCHILD OF MARX & COCA-COLA (BUT NON-BINEY). They hope you are having a real nice day xo xo

new from above/ground press: Night Protest, by Ben Jahn

Night Protest
Ben Jahn
$5

NIGHT PROTEST

when we heard about a man lapping milk spilled from a truck into a gutter with a pack of dogs and the radio said every minute every day every week that we delay / we decided we’d had enough / something had to be done / we made signs cut rough from old box flaps but couldn’t decide on a slogan so we filled them in completely / getting a little high off the marker’s fumes we waited for nightfall and donned dark sweatshirts and masks and stood an appropriate distance apart along old highway 123 / a distance suggesting / we felt / solidarity // in time no doubt others will join us / news media will catch on / call it an eerie spectacle you may have heard by now / of a night protest / what do they want / and we will lose control of the aesthetic / people will project their theories and fears onto our blank black signs / but for now no one has noticed our protest is pure / it’s making the difference we imagined that first giddy night when the concept was fresh

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Ben Jahn has published in Fence, Tin House Flash Fridays, ZYZZYVA, The Best of McSweeney’s, [PANK], The Santa Monica Review, DUSIE, and periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics. He received a National Endowment for the Arts grant in fiction, and his story, “Reborn,” appeared in The Paris Review as the winner of NPR’s Three Minute Fiction contest. He lives in Richmond, CA, not far (but usually upwind) from the Chevron refinery. He teaches at Contra Costa College, and spends his free time traveling with his partner and her kids. For infrequent updates, go to benjahn.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 rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: Carisse, Mohammadi, Logan, Hyland, Moritz + Barwin,

Russell Carisse is featured over at IceFloe Press; Khashayar Mohammadi has new work in the latest issue of the ex-puritan; Nate Logan, MC Hyland and Rachel Moritz have new work up at Concision; and Gary Barwin has donated his chapbook collection (including a whole slew of above/ground press stuff) to McMaster University.

new from above/ground press: Poor Rutebeuf, Translated from the French by William Vallières

Poor Rutebeuf
Translated by William Vallières
$5

In the time of leaves falling,
when there are more leaves falling
    than on the bough,
in a poverty that keeps me cowed,
that comes at me from all around
    like sneaky winter
coldly covering my verse,
my reel starts with a laden purse
    of sad stories.
Poor sense and perspicacity
God gave me, the King of glory,
    and poorer means,
and a cold ass when the winds freeze:
the ice of winds rip through me;
    it is often,
too too often that I feel the wind.
My reels promise to make a mint
    and they do:
I get a pound on the sou
for every misery, a fortune
    of penury.
Poverty is again on me:
its door is wide open wide to me;
    I am the guest
kept at its meagre breast.
In rain wet, in heat, all baked red:
     I go naked! ("Winter Reel")

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

William Vallières is a Montreal poet. His work has appeared in The Walrus, Best Canadian Poetry 2019, Grain, periodicities, Event, Plenitude, and other places. His first book of poetry, Versus, is out with Véhicule Press. He’s currently working on a book about the eccentric Québécois inventor—his grandfather—Jean St-Germain.

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

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

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

an assemblage of writing in response
to the work of Brenda Iijima

including
poems, critical writings
and
philosophical transactions

with contributions by:
Vidhu Aggarwal
Alan Davies
Nicholas DeBoer
Steph Gray
Ivy Johnson
Robin Lee Jordan
rob mclennan
Geoffrey Olsen
Beatrice Szymkowiak
Jamie Townsend
Laura Woltag

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
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)

Brenda Iijima has published two chapbooks with above/ground press: SWAMP/SWAMP (2017), and Moonbathing in Al Faiyūm (2021), and guest-edited the second issue of G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] (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 rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at robmclennan.blogspot.com

new from above/ground press: tattered sails (after un coup de des) (second printing), by Derek Beaulieu

Derek Beaulieu
tattered sails (after un coup de des)
second printing
$5

 

Notes:

“Tattered Sails” is a visual interpretation of Marcel Broodthaers’s response to Stephane Mallarme’s “Un coup de Dés jamais n'abolira le Hasard.” In 1969, Broodthaers published an edition in which he replaced all of the text in Mallarme’s poem with black bars the size and shape of the original’s writing. The resultant text highlights the radical layout of Mallarme’s poem, with reading across 2-page spreads, shifting type sizes and a shifting reading diction. Broodthaers’ version of “Un coup de Dés” elevates layout and structure to the level of writing itself; content becomes secondary to decisions of the tactile treatment of text.

With “Tattered Sails”, I have continued the tactile treatment of this poem by folding the double-sized pages of Broodthaers’ poem (suggesting the hang and fold of sails on the mast) , shifting Broodthaers’  bars in to the heaving beams and broken masts of a ship-wreck of meaning.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
originally produced for the sake of the author’s participation in KANADA KONCRETE, verbi-voco-visual poetries in the multimedia age conference at the University of Ottawa, May 4-6, 2018
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Derek Beaulieu is the author/editor of over twenty-five collections of poetry, prose, and criticism. His most recent volume of fiction, Silence, is forthcoming from Sweden’s Timglaset Books, his most recent volume of poetry, Surface Tension, was published by Toronto’s Coach House Books. Beaulieu has won multiple local and national awards for his teaching and dedication to students, the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal for this dedication to literature, and is the only graduate from the University of Calgary’s Department of English to receive the Faculty of Arts ‘Celebrated Alumni Award.’ Beaulieu holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Roehampton University, is Banff’s Poet Laureate, and the Director of Literary Arts at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

This is Derek Beaulieu’s eleventh above/ground press chapbook, after an issue of the long poem magazine STANZAS (“calcite gours 1-19,” issue no. 38), the interview chapbook ECONOMIES OF SCALE: rob mclennan interviews derek beaulieu on NO PRESS / derek beaulieu interviews rob mclennan on above/ground press (2012) and single-author chapbooks “A? any questions? (1998), [Dear Fred] (2004), HOW TO EDIT, Chapter A. (ALBERTA SERIES #8; 2008), transcend transcribe transfigure transform transgress (2014), a a novel: 1-20 (2017), tattered sails (after un coup de des) (2018), CABARET (2020) and ONTARIO HYDRO (2023).

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