new from above/ground press: Kid Commitment Proves Them Wrong, by Adam Thomlison

Kid Commitment Proves Them Wrong
Adam Thomlison
$5

Kid Commitment pushed himself to a full 12 rounds of shadowboxing – a championship-length fight – just to see if he could. And with fatigue he realized: Shadowboxing is just role-playing for a different kind of nerd.

He spent nights alone with a bottle. "At least booze will never betray me." Then he chipped a tooth and his world collapsed.

Agent Smith had been shot dozens of times. Only the first one hurt, because he took it personally.

"Brunettes will be the death of me," joked the thug who knew it would actually be bullets. Then a brunette pulled a gun on him.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
as the eighth title in above/ground’s prose/naut imprint
June 2021
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Author and journalist Adam Thomlison’s work has appeared in national newspapers and bus-station bathroom stalls, and has gotten him banned from Parliament Hill. His third book, the multi-genre parody A Thief, A Spy, and the Corpse Who Rode Shotgun, was released in 2019. Information about this and his other fictional exploits can be found at 40wattspotlight.com, or by e-mail at mail@40wattspotlight.com.

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: Retrofit Me, by Alyssa Bridgman

Retrofit Me
Alyssa Bridgman
$5
 

Towers

the physics of towers always baffled me
glass and steel—all windows—all sides

poplars in the breeze bend but don’t break
each branch knows exactly where to go

geometry in all things reflected—except perhaps
in the jagged shard of a piece of glass turned

light means nothing to eyes that remain dark—
looking inwards always and never out

but this natural math doesn’t work when you’re
counting calories and the mirror adds ten pounds

we are consumers in all that we do for ourselves
covetous eyes greedy for that new piece of metal

no concept of cost or what was lost in the hurried
rushing from A to B and so on and so forth

algorithm—I always thought it was spelled
rhythm like a song danced out in numbers

these figures ripple in the sun glinting blind
and we look down to see the sky in reflections

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

Cover illustration/design: Alec Bridgman

Alyssa Bridgman is a Vancouver based poet who lives on the unceded territories of the Kwikwetlem, Tsleil-Waututh, Katzie, Musqueam, Squamish, Quay Quayt, and Sto:lo First Nations. She has recently completed her MA in English literature at Simon Fraser University and has a particular interest in local ecological poetry. Her first chapbook, Hedge, was published by above/ground press 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

new from above/ground press: Labour Day, by James Lindsay

Labour Day
James Lindsay
$5

April 22, Winnipeg
From above I saw Manitoba
Ice break apart like from above
I saw California peppered
By wildfire after a never ending
Airport with crumpled sighing
River lines like bunched veins
And from above cloud fields
That feel the missing more than
Your worst nights without the white
Noise machine and my phone breaks
You into hotel blind slats putting up
A pitiful resistance against streetlight

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

James Lindsay is the author of the poetry collections Our Inland Sea, Double Self-Portrait, and the chapbook Ekphrasis! Ekphrasis!. He is owner of the record label Pleasence Records and works in publishing.

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: Barkman, Pirie, Prime + Christakos,

Carla Barkman (the poet formerly known as Carla Milo) is currently being interviewed over at poetry mini interviews; Pearl Pirie is interviewed by Bill Arnott; Tom Prime is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and Margaret Christakos has some new work up at Canthius.

Bryce Warnes reviews N.W. Lea's Less Dream (2021) at The Pamphleteer

Bryce Warnes was good enough to provide a first review for N.W. Lea's Less Dream (2021) over at The Pamphleteer. Thanks so much! You can see his original review here. As he writes:

NW Lea | above/ground press | Ottawa, 2021

Staple-bound, 12 pages | Purchase

Among his work’s themes, Lea has named encounters with the Real. One way he gets there: the double take, the second guess. “Void” opens with a list of struckthrough images, proclaims “I’m putting an end / to these twittering lists,” then finds egress from the world of surfaces via birds in a tree, “little adorable portals.” “You could murder every witless thing / in you. Every wishing thing,” proclaims “Murder Ballad,” flexing a knack for the near-homophonic reaching back to 2006’s light years (above/ground). Lea bends language until hairline cracks appear, letting the light shine through—and he’s been doing so for years. Less Dream is only the latest entry in a singular, numinous body of work.

announcing: G U E S T #17, a (periodicities) folio and an online launch,

On Thursday, June 3^rd, 2021 there will be an online launch for Melanie Dennis Unrau’s guest-edited issue of G U E S T [a journal of guest editors], a print issue that features new work by Yvonne Blomer, Kiran Malik-Khan, Peter Christensen, K.B. Thors, Nicholas Molbert, Rina Garcia Chua, Tawahum Bige, Julia Spicher Kasdorf, David Martin, Ross Belot, Bola Opaleke, Adam Dickinson, Lindsay Bird, Kelly Shepherd, Maya Weeks, Lisa Mulrooney + Rita Wong.

The issue itself doesn’t announce officially until Thursday morning (where you can find her introduction to the issue online at https://guestpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/) but you can totally pre-order (that’s what we’re calling it, yep) via the paypal button (because I have a huge box of them sitting here, I mean really)

G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] : issue #17
guest-edited by Melanie Dennis Unrau
published in Ottawa by above/ground press
June 2021
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Canadian/American/International rates (including shipping

Canadian orders $6.00 CAD American orders $7.00 CAD International orders $11.00 CAD

and, appearing simultaneously to the G U E S T issue [7am CDT/9am EDT] will be:
energy stories : folio
edited by Melanie Dennis Unrau at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics
as a supplemental folio to G U E S T #17
which will land on Thursday morning at https://periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/ along with an introduction by Unrau
with new writing by Sarah-Jean Krahn, Arleen Paré, Kathy Fisher, David C. Brydges + Dymphony Dronyk

INFORMATION ON THE THURSDAY AFTERNOON READING:
June 3, 2021 : 2:30pm CDT/4:30 EDT
|see facebook link here for information: https://www.facebook.com/events/3149594938632418
lovingly hosted by Melanie Dennis Unrau
with readings by participating authors:
Yvonne Blomer, Kiran Malik-Khan, Peter Christensen, K.B. Thors, Rina Garcia Chua, David Martin, Ross Belot, Lindsay Bird, Kelly Shepherd and Lisa Mulrooney

 

 

Melanie Dennis Unrau respectfully acknowledges the original caretakers of the land known as Treaty 1/Winnipeg, where she lives as a settler of mixed European ancestry on the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and the homeland of the Métis Nation, with water from Shoal Lake in Treaty 3 territory and with electricity from Treaty 1,3, and 5 territory, where the Northern Flood Agreement has never been implemented. Melanie is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a Research Affiliate at the University of Manitoba Institute for the Humanities. She is the author of Happiness Threads: The Unborn Poems (Muses’ Company, 2013), a co-editor of Seriality and Texts for Young People: The Compulsion to Repeat (Palgrave, 2014), a former editor and poetry editor at Geez magazine, and a former co-editor of The Goose: A Journal of Arts, Environment, and Culture in Canada.

Vallum magazine : Publishing in Canada: A Panel Discussion (archived,

In case anyone wanted to catch that publishing panel I was on, hosted by Vallum magazine, with other panelists Hazel and Jay MillAr, Dane Swan, Gail Scott, Ashley Obscura and Catherine Cormier-Larose, it is now very much online. See?