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

some author activity: Sweeney, Etherin, Schmaltz, Clayton + Eleftherion,

[Heather Sweeney launching her new above/ground press chapbook at Storyfort in Boise, Idaho as part of the Treefort festival] Anthony Etherin provides an essay in the my (small press) writing day series; further of Eric Schmaltz's commentaries have been appearing at Jacket2; forthcoming author Conyer Clayton has a poem up at Train : a poetry journal, as well as in the Tuesday poem series, over at the dusie blog; and Melissa Eleftherion has new work up in Dream Pop Journal #7.

new from above/ground press: Some Julian Days: Twentieth Anniversary Edition, by Gil McElroy

Some Julian Days : Twentieth Anniversary Edition
Gil McElroy
with a new afterword by the author
$5

Julian Day 2448254

So we reach a level
of particularity, & such acts of
motion as are prior to hindsights
are, on their own,
largely erased.  We face
the inevitable need
for rooms & the stuff
of homes.

One
religion is needed, one
avenue & form of literature - happy
English words, useful
in the distant study
of the dead.

I lack
all the right words
for instincts. Have we
completely acceptable senses?
Or is the formation
of successive days but one tiny occasion
of senses newly dead?

Understand,
such a place in myself
is built
with appropriate names.

Light & desire
generate words
in my heart.

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

Some Julian Days was originally produced by above/ground press in an edition of 300 copies, March 1999.

Gil McElroy is a poet, visual artist, curator, and visual arts critic. He has published four books of poetry with Talonbooks, a collection of art writing with Gaspereau Press, and a memoir about his father and what it was like growing up a military brat during the height of the Cold War that was also published by Talonbooks. His visual art has been exhibited in galleries across Canada, and he has curated exhibitions for numerous art galleries.

He’s also published numerous chapbooks, and in 2013, was co-winner of the bpNichol Chapbook Award for The Merton Lake Propers published by Baseline Press in London, Ontario.

He currently lives in Colborne.

Gil McElroy is the author of seven previous above/ground press chapbooks, including “Echolocations” (½ of STANZAS #5, April 1995), Some Julian Days (1999), “Meteor Showers” (STANZAS #31, 2002), (The Work of Art) In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (2005), Twentieth (2013), The Doxologies (2014) and LAOS (Some Julian Days) (2018). He also had a poem in the above/ground press twenty-fifth anniversary broadside series (2018).

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: Perry, Mavreas, Dreiblatt, Iijima, Reed + Gray,

forthcoming above/ground press author Paul Perry answers the "12 or 20 questions" interview; Billy Mavreas is interviewed over at poetry mini interviews; Ian Dreiblatt is now a columnist for The Believer; Brenda Iijima introduces the late Marthe Reed's Arc Hive via Tupelo Quarterly; and Evan Gray has a poem up in the Tuesday poem series via the Dusie blog.

new from above/ground press: The Peter F Yacht Club #27; VERSeFest special!

The Peter F Yacht Club #27
VERSeFest 2019 special
edited by rob mclennan
$6

With new writing by a host of Peter F Yacht Club regulars, irregulars and VERSeFest 2019 participants, including Manahil Bandukwala, Frances Boyle, Klara du Plessis, Amanda Earl, Avonlea Fotheringham, Lea Graham, natalie hanna, Richard Harrison, Harold Hoefle, Bob Hogg, Gil McElroy, rob mclennan, David O’Meara, Roland Prevost, Claudia Coutu Radmore, Armand Garnet Ruffo and Renée Sarojini Saklikar

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
[a small stack of copies will be distributed free as part of the eighth annual VERSeFest, March 26-31, 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

new from above/ground press: from The Book of Bramah, by Renée Sarojini Saklikar

from The Book of Bramah
Renée Sarojini Saklikar
$5

Bramah’s Grandmother & Other Tales

Finder of the lost: keys, rings, lockets, chains
builder of the last Revival Network:
She brought warmth to cold friendships, crescent moon
winter morning that star shone―
healer of the broken: she mended clocks
devices rarely seen, moving parts oiled
no one to say the word soul or look up—
Bare trees, aquamarine sky, dark towers
pressed, her messages retrieved, factory bound
delivery routes disrupted by migrants
Geneva to Tokyo, great councils met
oil prices, the flow of capital, trade—
never lose your sight, she would say, half blind
Years later, in rags, her fingers, still kind.

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

Renée Sarojini Saklikar recently completed her term as the first Poet Laureate for the City of Surrey, British Columbia. Her latest book is a B.C. bestseller: Listening to the Bees (Nightwood Editions, 2018). Renée’s first book, children of air india, (Nightwood Editions, 2013) won the 2014 Canadian Authors Association Award for poetry. Renée co-edited The Revolving City: 51 Poems and the Stories Behind Them (Anvil Press/SFU Public Square, 2015,) a City of Vancouver book award finalist. Renée’s chapbook, After the Battle of Kingsway, the bees, (above/ground press, 2016), reprinted earlier this month, was a finalist for the 2017 bpNichol award. Her poetry has been made into musical and visual installations, including the opera, air india [redacted].  Renée was called to the BC Bar as a Barrister and Solicitor, served as a director for youth employment programs in the BC public service, and now teaches law and ethics for Simon Fraser University in addition to teaching creative writing at both SFU and Vancouver Community College. She curates the popular poetry reading series, Lunch Poems at SFU and serves on the boards of Event magazine and The Capilano Review and is a director for the board of the Surrey International Writers Conference. Renée belongs to the League of Canadian Poets and The Writer’s Union of Canada (TWUC) and is active on the TWUC Equity Committee. She is currently working on an epic-length sci-fi poem, THOT-J-BAP, that appears in journals, anthologies and chapbooks.

[produced, in part, for the sake of the author’s appearance at Ottawa’s VERSeFest Poetry Festival, March 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

Touch the Donkey : fifth anniversary sale,

To celebrate the fifth anniversary of the quarterly Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] this April: anyone who subscribes (or resubscribes) anytime between now and the end of April 2019 has the bonus option of three (3) items: three Touch the Donkey back issues of your choice, OR three above/ground press (2018 or 2019) titles of your choice (while supplies last) OR any combination thereof.

Issue #21 of Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] lands on April 15, 2019. See the website for more than one hundred interviews with a variety of contributors (with more to come).

2018-19 above/ground press titles include chapbooks by: Chris Johnson, Conyer Clayton, Simina Banu, Frances Boyle, Hawad (trans. Jake Syersak), Susanne Dyckman, Jane Virginia Rohrer, Dennis Cooley, Ben Meyerson, Isabel Sobral Campos, Mary Kasimor, Andrew K Peterson, Natalie Lyalin, Kemeny Babineau, Michael Sikkema, Kimberly Campanello, Stephen Cain, kyle kinaschuk, Paul Perry, Gregory Betts, Billy Mavreas, Claudia Coutu Radmore, Stephanie Grey, Alice Burdick, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Heather Sweeney, Ralph Kolewe, Franco Cortese, Evan Gray, Dale Smith, Virginia Konchan, Joshua James Collis, Laura Farina, Jennifer Stella, Monty Reid, Anthony Etherin, Sarah Mangold, Cole Swensen, MC Hyland, Jamie Townsend, Sacha Archer, Megan Kaminski, Gil McElroy, Emily Izsak, rob mclennan, Sara Renee Marshall, Mark Laliberte, Lisa Rawn, Sean Braune, Michael Martin Shea, Melissa Eleftherion, Ian Dreiblatt, Kyle Flemmer, Uxío Novoneyra (trans. Erín Moure), Stephen Brockwell, Phil Hall / Stuart Kinmond, Billy Mavreas, Stuart Ross, natalie hanna, Miguel E. Ortiz Rodríguez, Natalee Caple, Julia Polyck-O'Neill, Jason Christie, Travis Sharp, Beth Ayer, Jon Boisvert, Jenna Jarvis, Lise Downe, Allison Cardon, Lea Graham, Tim Atkins, Gregory Betts + Arnold McBay, Amanda Earl, Derek Beaulieu, Aaron Tucker, Dani Spinosa, Andrew Wessels, Marthe Reed, Kate Siklosi, Edward Smallfield, Amish Trivedi, Steve McCaffery, Gary Barwin and Tom Prime, Gary Barwin and Alice Burdick, Alice Notley, Stan Rogal, Rachel Mindell, Eleni Zisimatos, Adrienne Gruber, Andrew Cantrell, kevin martins mcpherson eckhoff and Anna Gurton-Wachter. 

Canadian subscriptions $35 for five issues / American subscriptions $40 / International subscriptions $50 / All prices in Canadian dollars /

To order, e-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com or www.touchthedonkey.blogspot.com 

Issues are also available as part of the above/ground press annual subscription.

Because everybody loves a birthday. Who doesn’t love a birthday?

Touch the Donkey. Everywhere you want to be.