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.

new from above/ground press: F I V E O ’ C L O C K O N T H E S H O R E, by Allyson Paty

F I V E   O ’ C L O C K   O N   T H E   S H O R E
Allyson Paty
$5

A   R I T E

When a person dies the hours. That comprise
a total life.  Have stripped their clothes and
buried them in mud. The days have.
Shaved their perfect heads. Floated the hair
downriver and out. Out to sea. A body
of water where day. After day the ships are.
Carrying their freight. To market to uses
to garbage. Once beyond the shore where
land. Is worked and fucked and full
for harvest. Like a field in wartime the weeks.
Have already lit themselves. Have smoldered.
And we with our timeless. Ashes to rake.

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

cover image: Anonymous, Swiss Watch, c.a. 1820, Gold and Silver, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Allyson Paty's poems can be found in Boston Review, BOMB, The Brooklyn Rail, jubilat, The Literary Review, Tin House, the PEN Poetry Series, and elsewhere. Five O'Clock on the Shore is her fourth chapbook, following Score Poems (Present Tense Pamphlets/The Block Museum, 2016), In Medias Res (Monster House Press, 2016), and The Further Away ([sic] Detroit, 2012). She was a 2017 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Poetry and a participant in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's 2017-2018 Workspace Program. With Norah Maki, she is co-founding editor of Singing Saw Press. She is Assistant Director of the Writing Program at NYU Gallatin, where she runs a website for student writing, art, and research, and produces a print journal with the students in NYU's Prison Education Program.

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: Mangold, Burgoyne, Cantrell + Aigen,

Sarah Mangold is interviewed at talking about strawberries all of the time; Sarah Burgoyne has a poem in the Poetry Pause series via The League of Canadian Poets; Andrew Cantrell has a new poem in the Tuesday poem series via the dusie blog; and Razielle Aigen has new work up at Terse Journal.

some author activity: Eleftherion, Sikkema, Aigen, Clayton + Robinson,

[did I mention I'm doing both a small press fair and a panel conversation at IFOA in Toronto next weekend?]

Otherwise, Melissa Eleftherion was recently interviewed by Andrea Blythe about her above/ground press chapbook; Michael Sikkema has some new work up at talking about strawberries all of the time, as does Razielle Aigen, and Conyer Clayton is interviewed in the same issue; and forthcoming author Ben Robinson has a poem posted in the Poetry Pause series via The League of Canadian Poets.