above/ground press participates in The Capilano Review's epic kickstarter!

above/ground press has donated a mound of chapbooks for The Capilano Review's epic fundraiser! For a donation for $50 or more, you can pick up a set of fourteen above/ground press chapbooks. Only three sets available!

Each set includes: Gregory Betts, Who Let the Mice in Brion Gysin (2014), rob mclennan, How the alphabet was made (2014), Rae Armantrout, Rituals (2013), Fenn Stewart, An OK Organ Man (2012), Robert Manery, Richter-Rauzer Variations (2012), Mark Cochrane, Cat. (2012), Shannon Maguire, Vowel Wolves & Other Knots (2011), Ken Norris, GREEN WIND (2010), Natalie Simpson, The writing that should enter into conversation (2005), ryan fitzpatrick, Adolesce (2005), George Bowering (as "Ellen Field"), A, You're Adorable (2004), Meredith Quartermain, "Highway 99" (STANZAS #35) (2003), Donato Mancini, @phabet (2003), bpNichol, KON 66 & 67 (for jiri valoch (2002).

some author activity: Schmaltz, Kaminski, Martin + mclennan,

Eric Schmaltz writes a report on the Avant-Canada conference recently held at Brock U; Megan Kaminski is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Camille Martin is nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her work in Posit; and rob mclennan has ten new poems in the second issue of Pallaksch.Pallaksch., edited by Elizabeth Robinson and Steven Seidenberg.

Jason Christie reads an excerpt of Government (2013)

Jason Christie recently posted this short video/reading from Government (2013), his above/ground press title shortlisted for this year's bpNichol Chapbook Award (which is still available, as is his new title, Cursed Objects). You can see the entire shortlist here, by the by. We offer our congratulations to Christine Leclerc, who won for Oilywood (Nomados, 2013)!

Ryan Pratt reviews Touch the Donkey #s 1-3

Ryan Pratt reviews the first three issues of Touch the Donkey (one, two, three) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks much, Ryan! Of course, copies of all three are still available, as are subscriptions (whether separately, or as part of the annual above/ground press subscriptions).

some author activity: Hajnoczky, Hancock, Ursuliak, Adams + Armantrout,

Helen Hajnoczky has five new poems up at Lemonhound; Brecken Hancock is interviewed by Ariel Gordon over at The Jane Day Reader; Emily Ursuliak has a new essay posted as part of the "On Writing" series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter; Carrie Olivia Adams has a new poem posted as part of the "Tuesday poem" series over at the dusie blog; and Rae Armantrout has some new poems posted in print and online in Lana Turner #7

Frank Davey reviews Pearl Pirie's today's woods (2014)

Poet and critic Frank Davey was good enough to review Pearl Pirie's today's woods (2014) over at his blog. Thanks much, Frank! Usually we have to wait weeks or months for a review, and he posted one before I even finished sending out subscriber copies!

See his original post here.

Today’s Woods, by Pearl Pirie. Ottawa: above/ground press, 2014. 6 pp.

This very small chapbook came in the mail yesterday along with several other subscription items from rob mclennan’s also small but many-windowed publishing emporium. Once past the cryptic title, this one is more than worth the price of subscription.

The long lines of Today’s Woods retell the story of the Three Bears’ apocryphal encounter with Goldilocks – including several non-Goldilocks versions that preceded the 1918 one that turned out to be “just right.” And Pirie’s lines are long – editor mclennan works hard to confine them to their pages, reducing all four margins, and in one case running a line across the gutter onto the adjacent page. So there's a lot of words for only 4 pages.

The retelling filters the familiar Eurobear story through the “woods” of both current cultural politics and the physical and behavioral attributes of Canadian grizzly bears. Who cooked the porridge, she asks – was it mom or dad? – which do the details of the story imply? Why did the bears go for a walk and allow their bowls of porridge to reach their varying temperatures? Would bears so skillful as to be able to cook porridge be unwise enough to let it cool? Why is each bear “oblivious to all but own distress. no apparent care about tampering with child’s objects, only each to self, my chair! my bed!”? Is Goldilocks a runaway? Does her occupation of baby-grrrl bear's bed constitute a symbolic sexual assault? Is she a colonial home-invader in a house of indigenous non-white bears? “side note: these are not polar bears in cultural transference to Canada. culturally coded against dark-toned dark-haired bears to be threatening.” The bear parents use the incident to teach their daughter that “she must be self-reliant because humans are running feral”. Like a reality-TV star, Goldilocks labours to believe her own implausible excuses. “Goldy went to therapy to talk about” taking “refuge in good conscience in what she thought / was an abandoned cottage, / despite the fresh cooking scent / and fresh bouquets on table”.

But Goldy cannot get out of the woods in this skillfully and amusingly critical parable -- because those woods were darker and more complicated even back in 1918 than we readers first noted. Dark and complicated woods, which in Pirie's interrogative narrative become fresh woods too.

On the last page of the chapbook is a note that Pirie has a larger book coming from Toronto’s BookThug next spring. Could be interesting.

FD

The Factory Reading Series : Massey, Pirie + Irwin, December 12, 2014;

span-o (the small press action network - ottawa) presents:

The Factory Reading Series presents
three readings and chapbook launches by:

Karen Massey (Ottawa)
Pearl Pirie (Ottawa)
+ Marilyn Irwin (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, December 12, 2014;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)

Karen Massey [pictured] lives in Ottawa, between the canal and the river. Her poetry has won numerous prizes and been published in literary journals and anthologies including Decalogue: Ten Ottawa Poets (Chaudiere Books). Her erasure poetry has appeared in anthologies including Bukowski Erasure Poetry Anthology (Silver Birch Press, 2014) and online at Bywords.ca, ottawater, Bukowski on Wry, and in Là Bloom, special Bloomsday issue of the Found Poetry Review featuring poetry sourced from James Joyce’s Ulysses.

She will be launching the chapbook Strange Fits of Beauty & Light (above/ground press, 2014), her second above/ground press chapbook, after Bullet (1999).

Pearl Pirie’s next collection, Pet Radish, Shrunken is with BookThug, Spring 2015. Host of Literary Landscape on CKCUfm.com, she has organized Ottawa’s Tree Seed Workshops since 2009 and gives workshops and talks on poetry for various organizations. She blogs and photographs Ottawa’s rich, amazing literary scene. www.pearlpirie.com

She will be launching the chapbook today's woods (above/ground press, 2014), her fifth above/ground press publication and third chapbook, after vertigoheel for the dilly (2014) and oath in the boathouse (2008).

Marilyn Irwin’s work has been published by above/ground press, Arc Poetry Magazine (where she is a Contributing Editor), Bywords, Dusie, In/Words, and New American Writing, among others.
A graduate of Algonquin College’s Creative Writing program and winner of Arc’s 2013 Diana Brebner Prize, she has three chapbooks: for when you pick daisies (2010), flicker (2012), and little nothings (2012). for when you pick daisies was reprinted in the Chaudiere Books collection Ground rules: the best of the second decade of above/ground press 2003-2013.

She will be launching the chapbook tiny (In/Words, 2014).