new from above/ground press: In Which Archibald Lampman / Translates Arthur Rimbaud, by Grant Wilkins

Grant Wilkins
In Which Archibald Lampman / Translates Arthur Rimbaud
$5

Morning

Matin means morning     or sometimes, wakening sky     when night’s dying shadows     and old superstitions     meet the stirring of the sun     writing hope in blood and gold     above the marble quays and laurel woods     like warm breath     on silence

Le Temps s’écoulera means Time shall flow     or sometimes, the world marches on     when the hallucination of words     empties and refills     the drawing rooms and schools     and the woodyards of our youth     with the woeful felicity     of a quaint morning melodrama     or a high sovereign creed

Le chant des cieux means the song of the heavens     or sometimes, the lament of the winds      for though the city bells are singing     in their hollow towers     echoing endless Ave Marias        I can still hear the Goddess whispering     broken in grief and dim old age     dying slowly away      like mist in the morning

Rêver et attendre means to dream and to wait     or sometimes, somehow, my spirit is asleep     when the pale broken sun     that lured our youth     and disordered our minds     is beaten smooth to gleaming silver     we will finally be free     to drink the alchemy of the Word     in a long Circean draught

L’aube d’été means summer dawn     or sometimes, morning summons      when the sun breaks dull red     and the outer verges of my sleep     slowly vanish      to the sound of sparrows and fresh light     as I stir in the morning     and weep in mourning     for the antiquity of your wisdom

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Grant Wilkins is a printer, papermaker and occasional poet from Ottawa who has made a practice of doing strange things to other people’s words. He has degrees in History & Classical Civilization and in English, and he likes ink, metal, paper, letters, sounds and words, and combinations thereof.

This is Wilkins’ second above/ground press chapbook, after Reading The Great Classics Of Canlit through Book 5 of bpNichol’s The Martyrology (2022).

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: Report from the Trivedi Society. Vol. 1 No. 1

Report from the Trivedi Society
Vol 1. No. 1
edited by rob mclennan
$7

an assemblage of writing in response
to the work of Amish Trivedi

including
poems, critical writings
and
philosophical transactions

with contributions by:
Marty Cain
Chris Carosi
Joshua Corey
Michelle Detorie
Forrest Gander
francois luong
Lance Phillips
Prageeta Sharma and Mike Stussy
Alina Stefanescu
G.C. Waldrep
Nikki Wallschlaeger
Thomas Whyte

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
full list of published reports here
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Report on the Society logo by C. McNair, editor’s devil (retired)

Amish Trivedi has published four chapbooks with above/ground press: The Destructions (2015), What We Remembered Before the Fire (2018), The Universe is an Earth-Shaped Urn (2021) and The Breakers (Expanded) (2021).

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 robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: mclennan, Brink, Mody + Chadwick,

rob mclennan has a new poem up at his blog, and a video online of him reading to promote his upcoming online event via Vancouver's Poets Corner Reading Series; Kōan Brink has a new poem up in the "Tuesday poem" series; Monica Mody is featured on The Beat: a poetry podcast; and Leigh Chadwick has new work up at The Airgonaut.

new from above/ground press: DEAR NOSTALGIA, by Nathanael O'Reilly

DEAR NOSTALGIA
Nathanael O’Reilly
$5

Chronotope

I live nine thousand, one hundred and four
miles, or fourteen thousand, six hundred
and fifty-one kilometres away
from my birthplace – I also live
in the present, forty-seven years
and seven months from the moment
of my birth in a country town
crouched above the Southern Ocean,
three thousand miles north of Antarctica.
Twenty-two years and twelve days after
I entered the world with blue eyes
and white hair, received the nickname
Murph the Surf from the nurses, twenty-two
years and twelve days after the local
radio station announced my birth
and played Bowie’s Space Oddity
in my honour, I left my homeland,
lifted off and crossed the sea alone
with one black suitcase full of books
and CDs, another full of clothes.
I carried my possessions with two hands
like my ancestors boarding ships
in Ireland, England, Wales and Portugal,
launched into a distant hemisphere.
I hurtled across time and space, landed
in a new station far above my past.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Nathanael O’Reilly is an Irish-Australian poet; he teaches creative writing at The University of Texas at Arlington. His nine collections include Selected Poems of Ned Kelly (Beir Bua Press, 2023), Boulevard (Beir Bua Press, 2021), (Un)belonging (Recent Work Press, 2020), BLUE (above/ground press, 2020) and Preparations for Departure (UWAP, 2017). His poetry appears in over one hundred journals and anthologies published in fourteen countries, including Another Chicago Magazine, Anthropocene, Cordite, The Elevation Review, Identity Theory, The Madrigal, New World Writing Quarterly, Trasna, Westerly and Wisconsin Review. He is the poetry editor for Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/New Zealand Literature.

This is O’Reilly’s second above/ground press chapbook, after BLUE (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

some author activity: Fuhr, Niespodziany + mclennan,

Laurie Anne Fuhr is interviewed in the "Six Questions" series via the Chaudiere Books blog; Benjamin Niespodziany has new work up at Peach mag, and at Litro, and is interviewed over at Gone Lawn; rob mclennan has a new poem up at Train: a poetry journal, and is interviewed by Lori Hettler in the 40 bu 10 questions interview series.

new from above/ground press: Perfumer's Organ, by Lindsey Webb

Perfumer’s Organ
Lindsey Webb
$5

       If it’s important to you, you can keep it on. So I wear it like a popular wife at the supermarket.
       It is seventy years ago and I am gracefully taking the phone off the hook, and my fingers go all the way around the handle before meeting in the middle, listful.
Eating endocrines off the ground.
       What do they call that scent—petrichor? Laser copier? Hang your clothes out to dry in the wind and when you bring them in, cover your face and breathe deeply. That’s ozone.
       Elephant trunk bottle, decanted onto a towel and dabbed on the throat; hot evening.

       Ammonites moving out there in the dark.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

cover image: Maddison Colvin, “white peonies” (2019) used with permission of the artist

Lindsey Webb is the author of a chapbook, House (Ghost Proposal, 2020). Her writings have appeared in Chicago Review, Denver Quarterly, jubilat, and Lana Turner, among others. She was named a 2021 National Poetry Series finalist and received a fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. She lives in Salt Lake City, where she is a Steffensen Cannon fellow in the PhD program in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Utah.

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: Something or Other, by Jason Heroux

Something or Other
Jason Heroux
$5

SOMETHING

The process of assuming control of someone’s territory and applying one’s own systems of law, government and religion is called something. In 1492 Christopher Columbus discovered something in 1969 Neal Armstrong stepped on something in 1915 Albert Einstein published his theory of something.

In Judges 14:14 Samson says, “Out of the eater came something to eat.”

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Cover artwork: Samuel Strathman

Jason Heroux was the Poet Laureate for the City of Kingston from 2019 to 2022. He is the author of four books of poetry: Memoirs of an Alias (2004); Emergency Hallelujah (2008); Natural Capital (2012) and Hard Work Cheering Up Sad Machines (2016). His forthcoming books include a short fiction collection Survivors of the Hive (Radiant Press) and a poetry chapbook New and Selected Days (Origami Poems Project).

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