Saturday, August 7, 2021
some author activity: Brink, Norris, Brenner, Earl, Paty + Naughton,
Thursday, August 5, 2021
new from above/ground press: study, by Katie Naughton
Katie Naughton
$5
It seems the idea comes in a different form every time it comes, each time a new process of letting the outside in and letting the inside out.
If you exist any day you are not the same as any other day no nor any minute of the day because you have inside you being existing. Anybody who is existing and anybody really anybody is existing anybody really is that.
But anything happening well the inside and the outside are not the inside and the outside inside.
Let me do that again. The inside and the outside, the outside which is outside and the inside which is inside are not when they are inside and outside are not inside in short they are not existing, that is inside, and when the outside is entirely outside that is it is not at all inside then it is not at all inside and so it is not existing. Do you not see what a newspaper is and perhaps history. (116-17)
¾Gertrude Stein’s “Narration” via Philip Whalen via Leslie Scalapino’s “How Phenomena Appear to Unfold”
If I exist today I am alone in an apartment I used to live in, waiting to be ready to unfold something. It’s the dark end of the year, a time in which I am almost invariably spending inside straining to stay in thought, trying to continue to feel like I exist (anybody really anybody is existing anybody really is that) while the longest night comes, while the rituals of money and bright fabrics, sugar, cocktails, and light unfold around me and I am trying to go into the darkness alone and come out again. (An encounter with darkness an encounter with light.) Let me do that again. I am trying to put what someone has written inside of me and outside again with something added to it. I am trying to put something inside of me outside of me. But anything happening well the inside and the outside are not the inside and the outside inside.
published in Ottawa by above/ground press
August 2021
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
Katie Naughton is a poet living in Buffalo, NY, where she is a doctoral candidate in the Poetics program at SUNY - Buffalo. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Colorado State University. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Jubilat, Michigan Quarterly Review, Bennington Review, and elsewhere. She is at work on two collections of poems, “Hour Song,” which was a finalist for the 2021 Nightboat Poetry Prize under the title “the real ethereal,” and “Debt Ritual.” She is the publicity editor for Essay Press and founder of Etcetera, a web journal of poetry and poets' reflections on reading.
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
Saturday, July 31, 2021
some author activity: Armantrout, Niespodziany, O'Reilly, Norris + Boyle,
Friday, July 30, 2021
new from above/ground press: DO YOU EVER THINK OF ME, by Summer Brenner
Do You Ever Think of Me?
Summer Brenner
$5
Traveling north on 49, it’s obvious there will be crowds wherever we go, as it’s midsummer and high season for vacationers. I’ve booked a room at a lodge near Sierra City, recommended by Dick Walker, a native Californian, professor emeritus of geography, and explorer of the state’s nooks and crannies, documented in his books on the subject. In other words, it’s a trustworthy recommendation.published in Ottawa by above/ground press
The lodge is easy to find. It abuts the road across from a big field of mowed grass and beside the driveway is a small trout pond with a dispenser to buy fish food. Inside the main building are a bar and a restaurant with picture windows, and behind it under redwoods and fir, are cabins with kitchenettes. Farther along and down a steep hill are single rooms with long porticos in front and balconies perched on stilts on the backside that overlook the gurgling Yuba River.
Everything in our room is standard: dumpy bed, tiny bathroom, molded plastic shower, drippy faucet, two towels, two wash cloths, a dowel with four hangars, bedside tables and reading lamps, a Gideon’s Bible, and a small refrigerator that hums. Number 14, that’s where we’ve landed, thanks to Dick Walker.
The humming reminds me of my childhood terror of polio and iron lungs and my first visit to the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia. It was more than sixty years later that I visited it again, on a driving tour of the state with you in the coldest January on record. We were separated then but understandably, you wanted to join me for Bessie’s ninetieth birthday, a gala with dozens of guests for dinner and dancing in Batesburg, the village where Bessie came as a bride and never left.
After the party the Little White House was our first stop. You and I travel well together, and even during our five-year separation, we traveled well. You don’t mind stopping, and I don’t mind pushing on, so whatever suits our mood is okay. Staring at the oversized pool, empty of water, where the crippled President swam and played with thousands of children, I cried. I guess I cried for Daddy who loved Roosevelt more than anyone on earth.
(“DO YOU EVER THINK OF ME #1”)
as the tenth title in above/ground’s prose/naut imprint
July 2021
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
Summer Brenner is the author of a dozen publications that include noir fiction, short stories, award-winning novels for youth, poetry, and the occasional essay. Recent work can be found in Berkeley Noir (Akashic) and online at Hello Goodbye Apocalypse. Forthcoming from Spuyten Duyvil Press is The Missing Lover, a collection of novellas.
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
Wednesday, July 28, 2021
new from above/ground press: Ordinary Annals, by Monica Mody
Monica Mody
$5
Trees still burn
at edge of consciousness,
gray. Ash
crinkles in gust.
Ash-sky marked us.
We are tangled with living
Earth. I keep trying
to find the rhythm of this poem.
Asphyxiated, in anguish,
it urgently wants to come out.
I need to breathe
but paper-thin parchment
somewhere within my lungs—
sky laid waste.
Mind wants to find ways
to make it better
but I am tired. I rest
into air.
Spirit of air,
ever-changing,
turning nothing into something
through simple action.
Brush us with your feathers
that we may yet return to forests
friends of fire.
(“Ordinary Annals”)
published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2021
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
cover image: “Heera,” Oil and powdered stone on Canvas, 2020
by Palija Shrestha https://palijashrestha.com
Monica Mody's poetry collection Bright Parallel is forthcoming from Copper Coin Press. She is the author of Kala Pani (1913 Press). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in anthologies including Extinction Violin: The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Poets, What is Time: An Anthology of New Indian Writing, Hibiscus: Poems that Heal and Empower, and &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing. Her poetry also appears in Poetry International, Indian Quarterly, Almost Island, Boston Review, and other lit magazines. She has been a recipient of the Sparks Prize (University of Notre Dame), the Zora Neale Hurston Award (Naropa), and the Toto Funds the Arts Award for Creative Writing.
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
Monday, July 26, 2021
new from above/ground press: The End of Lake Superior, by Kōan Anne Brink
Kōan Anne Brink
$5
The End of Lake Superior
It was
cool and dark,
azalea in bloom
at the edge
of the forest.
The raw silk of it
peeking out
from its
heavily ironed
dress shirt.
Still more surface
area than flowing
water, it was
hard to live by glacial
repose alone.
The visible saints
drifting again
into imitation,
into the world’s late
afternoon.
We buried ourselves
at her bequest.
published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2021
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
Kōan Anne Brink was born and raised in Minnesota. They are the Art Writing Fellow at The Cooper Union and a lay ordained Sōtō Zen student. They live in Santa Fe.
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
Saturday, July 24, 2021
some author activity: Sikkema, Niespodziany, Caple + Norris,
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