new from above/ground press: a field guide to fanciful bugs, by Amanda Earl

a field guide to fanciful bugs
Amanda Earl
$5

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2021
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

a field guide to fanciful bugs was first published by avantacular press in 2010 as an e-book on Scrib, but is no longer available online. Thanks to Andrew Topel.

Amanda Earl (she/her) is a pansexual polyamorous feminist mischief maker living in Ottawa. She’s the managing editor of Bywords.ca and the fallen angel of AngelHousePress. She’s authored 14 visual poetry chapbooks and leaflets from publishers in Canada, USA and Sweden, and her visual poetry has been exhibited Brazil, Canada, Russia and the USA.  Earl is the author of Kiki (Chaudiere Book, 2014, now available from Invisible Publishing), A World of Yes (Devil House, 2015) and Coming Together Presents Amanda Earl (Coming Together, 2014). Her most recent chapbook is an experimental prose novella, Sessions from the DreamHouse Aria (above/ground press, 2020). Amanda’s goals are love, whimsy, exploration, connection to kindred misfits and community-building. For more information, please visit AmandaEarl.com or connect with Amanda on Twitter @KikiFolle.

This is Amanda Earl’s ninth chapbook with above/ground press, after Eleanor (2007), The Sad Phoenician’s Other Woman (2008), Sex First & Then A Sandwich (2012), A Book of Saints (2015), Lady Lazarus Redux (2017), The Book of Mark (2018), Aftermath or Scenes of a Woman Convalescing (2019) and Sessions from the DreamHouse Aria (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 rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Bryce Warnes reviews Jérôme Melançon's Coup (2020) at The Pamphleteer

Bryce Warnes was good enough to provide a first review for Jérôme Melançon's Coup (2020) over at his relatively new site, The Pamphleteer. Thanks so much! You can see his original review here. As he writes:

Jérôme Melançon | above/ground press | Ottawa, 2020

Staple bound, 20 pages | Purchase

Phenomena elemental and urban, the in-betweens of car seats and hotel coffee, come apart and rejoin, redisclose themselves. “Les racines sarclées, les mains pleines de tiges / Sudden desire to hear into everything,” to go underground, where “D’une douceur pressentie l’humidité suinte.” Above, “Le ciel s’incline,” and “Directions shift, pull the window in the storm’s way…” Disjointed, the world’s hidden forces fracture the body (“…cracked hands and brilliance”) and create blockages (“Enfermement des veines…”), tangling territories and sense. Is that a bird or a streetlight? A song or an error? Carried by Coup’s poem-logic of translingual rhyme, we drift into a dream—smack dab.

new from above/ground press: OCCUPATIONAL ELEGIES, by Joseph Mosconi

OCCUPATIONAL ELEGIES
Joseph Mosconi
$5

600 singers
     trumpet slogan and chant
for the Roman pithiness
     of a country verb

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2021
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Cover image: film still, Notre siècle, Artavazd Peleshyan, 1983.

Joseph Mosconi is a writer and taxonomist based in Los Angeles. He co-directs the Poetic Research Bureau and is currently an editor at Make Now Books. He is the author of several books, including Ashenfolk (Make Now Books, 2019), Fright Catalog (Insert Blanc Press, 2013), Demon Miso/Fashion In Child (Make Now Books, 2014), Renaissance Realism (Gauss PDF, 2016), and, with Pauline Beaudemont, an artist book called This Arrogant Envelope (FCAC Geneva, 2017). With Rita Gonzalez he edited the art and poetry journal Area Sneaks. His poems have been selected for the BAX: Best American Experimental Writing anthology for the years 2014 and 2015. With Andrew Maxwell, he curated an exhibition, THIS KNOWN WORLD: Spontaneous Particulars of the Poetic Research Bureau at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 2017.

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: O'Reilly, fitzpatrick, eckhoff, Johnson + Novak,

Nathanael O'Reilly has some new work posted up at Literati, Melbourne Culture Corner #6 and The Elevation Review; ryan fitzpatrick has some new work plus statement posted as part of the Spotlight series; kevin mcpherson eckhoff has a new poem posted in the "Tuesday poem" series over at the dusie blog; Chris Johnson is interviewed over at Train : a poetry journal; and forthcoming author JoAnna Novak is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey.

new from above/ground press: Moonbathing in Al Faiyūm, by Brenda Iijima

Moonbathing in Al Faiyūm
Brenda Iijima
$5

Gradually my body gives over to the Sun
Mimics the Sun, becomes the Sun
For a time, there was borderline confusion
Blood recedes, dismisses lunation
Between syzygies is magma
Flowing in a braid of silver nerve energy

Flora and fauna translate atmosphere
Feeling the Sun is a primary need

Money grubbers without soul
What does the Sun know of them?

The Sun cares about flora
Flora interpret the Sun’s rays
Into a disposition of energy conducive
To earthly mattering
We are Sun’s abundance

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2021
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Brenda Iijima is a poet, playwright, choreographer and visual artist. She is the author of nine books of poetry. Her involvements occur at the intersections and mutations of genre, process, receptivity, and field of study. Her current work engages submerged and occluded histories, other-than-human modes of  expression and telluric awareness in all forms. Her most recent book, Bionic Communality, is just out from Roof Books. Her first play, Daily Life in China, will be published in spring, 2021 by elis press. Iijima is the founding editor-publisher of Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs. She lives in Brooklyn.

This is Iijima’s second chapbook with above/ground press, after SWAMP/SWAMP (2017).

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: Transmissions from the Crawdad Constellation, by Michael Sikkema

Transmissions from the Crawdad Constellation
Michael Sikkema
$5

< . . . now . . . >

        becoming noise

* & *                     ///
      * *                    ^
 *    *     *                \\\

     “   ,        branch and antler
        
           \|/                 /|\
        
                “   ,    > , , , ‘ ‘ ‘ <
                                                       * & *         
              *

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2021
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Michael Sikkema is interested in feral alphabets, bird-mushroom confluences, tree music, and the function of poetry for the human microbiome. His most recent book is You’ve Got a Pretty Hellmouth (Trembling Pillow Press), and consists of long poems that play with western, horror, and sci fi tropes. Caw Caw Phony is his next full length collection, which explores closed captions, foley art, listening maps, and other sound-related material as a conduit for poetry. It is forthcoming from Trembling Pillow Press in 2021. He lives in West Michigan.

This is Sikkema’s second chapbook with above/ground press, after Here on Huron (2019). A third is forthcoming.

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

above/ground press participates in the virtual SMOL Fair March 3-7, 2021

Yep, above/ground press is participating virtually in the SMOL Fair from March 3-7, 2021

WHAT IS THAT? Well, as their website offers:

SMOL Fair is an alternative, virtual book fair that will be 'live' from March 3-7, 2021. It is 100% free for presses to participate.

For readers, we are hosting a reading, a keynote address, and a mixer. We are coordinating an events calendar for that week featuring readings from participating presses as well as book give-aways and deals on work from your favorite authors.

That's pretty cool, yes? Reminiscent of last fall's Meet the Presses' Indie Lit Symposium, which virtually held a really interesting series of panels etcetera [all of which can still be found online, by the way]

Between now and March 7, 2021, above/ground press will be offering 50% off on any and all chapbook/issue orders (not including shipping). Just include the word SMOL when you send your order in (this runs out at midnight on Sunday, so if there's anything you were thinking of ordering, now just might be the time...)

above/ground press is also offering a handful of give-aways through the fair itself, including copies of the April 2021 issue of Touch the Donkey, katie o'brien's micro moonlight (2021), Jason Christie's Bridge and burn (2021), Amish Trivedi's The Universe in an Earth-Shaped Urn (2021) and Kristjana Gunnars' a moment in flight: essay on melancholy (2020), so check out their site to see how any of that stuff works. And they're even on twitter!