some author activity: Siklosi, Adams, Ross + Dennis,

Kate Siklosi has a new essay up at Jacket2; Carrie Olivia Adams is interviewed by Karlie Herndon and Kevin Thomason for The University of Arizona Poetry Center; Stuart Ross and Michael Dennis are doing a house reading in Altmonte, Ontario on July 11; and Stuart Ross will be running a poetry workshop in Vanier (Ottawa) on Sunday, July 21 (spaces are limited; email razovsky@gmail.com for availability).

some author activity: Unsworth, Eleftherion, Sikkema, mclennan + the ottawa small press book fair,

Forthcoming author Lydia Unsworth is interviewed over at Train : a poetry journal; Melissa Eleftherion interviews Mariel Fechik over at Queen Mob's Teahouse; Michal Sikkema is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; rob mclennan posts an essay in the "Power of Poetry" series at The Poetry Question; and will we see you today at the ottawa small press book fair?

new from above/ground press: HONG KONG BLUES, by Ken Norris

HONG KONG BLUES
Ken Norris
$5

HAND IN THE RIVER

Everything flows by.

A thousand poems
are lived, and never
written down.

You’re only limited
by what you can imagine.

I set up base camp
in this room
with golden curtains,

remembering the green curtain
that never went my way.

That was in another city,
and besides--
the ditch is dead.

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

Ken Norris was born in New York City in 1951. He emigrated to Montreal in the mid-1970s, and became a Canadian citizen in 1985. For thirty-three years he taught Canadian Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Maine. He currently resides in Toronto.

This is Ken Norris’ sixth above/ground press chapbook, after Windward - St. Lucia Poems (1995), THE COMMENTARIES (1999), SONGS FOR ISABELLA (2000), Green Wind (2010) and LOOKING INTO IT (2011).

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

Judson Hamilton reviews rob mclennan's Study of a fox (2018) at Queen Mob's Teahouse

Judson Hamilton was good enough to provide the first review of rob mclennan's Study of a fox (2018) as part of his "HEY THERE, CHAPPIE!" series over at Queen Mob's Teahouse. Thanks so much! As much appreciation as review, you can see the full review here, but it includes:

rob mclennan’s chapbook Study of a Fox is uncanny in that the poems seem to inhabit two places at once. They have depth but skim the surface and draw together both the multitude and the particular. Their meaning is to be read between the lines and felt rather than understood. Some common themes include: family, aging, the seasons.

Gravenhurst, a failed record of a roadtrip in haibun, by Chris Johnson

Gravenhurst
a failed record of a roadtrip in haibun
Chris Johnson
$5

I’m the youngest son of the youngest son of a youngest son. If I unwind the string for long enough, surely it will end at an explanation of why my family has unknotted from my mother’s outgoing, close-knit relations. My dad’s mother knit for me rarely. I never pulled those threads. She baked, kept mints in crystal jars, chuckled ignorantly at my adolescent selection of movies rented from the local video store on the weekends we’d stay in Gravenhurst. My mom’s father is alive for country road driving. On taking blind turns around corners on winding roads, he’d say that you should always prepare to meet someone coming the other way. Now I’m turning onto Essonville Line. The grandparent’s grave I’m approaching and the grandparent’s advice on my mind are incongruous. Out of nowhere, I’m a sum of less than two parts; a motto with odd genesis.

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

cover image: dalton derkson

Chris Johnson is the Managing Editor for Arc Poetry Magazine. His chapbook, Listen, Partisan!, is from Frog Hollow Press. @ceeeejohnson

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 Factory Reading Series: Adrienne Gruber, Chris Johnson + Ben Ladouceur, July 2, 2019

span-o (the small press action network - ottawa) presents:
The Factory Reading Series:

with readings by:
Adriene Gruber (Vancouver BC)
Chris Johnson (Ottawa ON)
+ Ben Ladouceur (Ottawa ON)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
doors 7pm/reading 7:30pm
Vimy Brewing Company
145 Loretta Ave N #1, Ottawa

Adrienne Gruber is the author of three books of poetry, Q & A (Book*hug), Buoyancy Control (Book*hug) and This is the Nightmare (Thistledown Press), and five chapbooks. She won the Antigonish Review’s Great Blue Heron poetry contest in 2015, SubTerrain’s Lush Triumphant poetry contest in 2017, and her chapbook Mimic was awarded the bp Nichol Chapbook Award in 2012. Originally from Saskatoon, Adrienne lives in Vancouver with her partner and two daughters.

Chris Johnson is the Managing Editor for Arc Poetry Magazine. His chapbook, Listen, Partisan!, is from Frog Hollow Press, and his chapbook Gravenhurst, a failed record of a roadtrip in haibun is newly out from above/ground press. @ceeeejohnson

Ben Ladouceur is the author of Mad Long Emotion, a poetry collection published by Coach House Books. His first collection, Otter, was selected as a best book of 2015 by the National Post, nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, and awarded the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best debut collection in Canada. In 2018, he received the Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize for emerging LGBT writers. He lives in Ottawa.

new from above/ground press: Trust Only the Beasts in the Water, by Conyer Clayton

Trust Only the Beasts in the Water
Conyer Clayton
$5

Growth

My mac-and-cheese is cold. If I complain about it, I'm never allowed to eat again. I get into a van with the other children. We're driven across a windless landscape, skin-grey and hollow. The room we enter is full of beds. Blinds drawn. They tell us, the habits you make today will last for the rest of your lives. In the bathroom, I realize the mole on my neck has grown to epic proportions. I use it as a cape — fly to bed. As a blanket. It cannot be removed. I wouldn't let them if they tried. Burrow in. Sleeping bag. The habits I build today will last for the rest of my life. I will always be this silent girl wrapped in her own skin. 

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

cover image by Kelsea Shore

Conyer Clayton is an Ottawa based artist who aims to live with compassion, gratitude, and awe. Her most recent chapbooks are: / (post ghost press, 2019),  Undergrowth (bird, buried press), Mitosis (In/Words Magazine and Press), and For the Birds. For the Humans. (battleaxe press). She released a collaborative album with Nathanael Larochette, If the river stood still, in August 2018. She won Arc's 2017 Diana Brebner Prize, 3rd place in Prairie Fire's 2017 Poetry Contest, and honourable mention in The Fiddlehead's 2018 poetry prize. She is a member of the sound poetry ensemble Quatuor Gualuor, and writes reviews for Canthius. Her debut full length collection of poetry is forthcoming in Spring 2020.

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