Thursday, March 5, 2026

new from above/ground press: Now When, A Poem, by Travis Sharp

Now When, A Poem
Travis Sharp
$6


when the reminder
when the junk mail piles
when the door’s a knockin
when it’s Monday
when the flowers breathe again
when the sound of trees in wind
when the flight gets cancelled
when the present can, in fact, be long
when the sun speaks out
when it snows so early
when there’s cops on every corner
when the metro is locked and guarded
when the escalator gets stuck mid-journey
when there’s another strike
when there’s banners out the windows
when I mean it this time
when the power goes out
when really
when you’re so late again
when the shining is the point
when feelings learn to fester
when the winter market opens
when wind so cold it burns the cheek
when your hair gets tussled
when the grinding labors you

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2026
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

cover image: Bradley W. Johnson
, 4th of 7 Days, 7 Pieces (detail)

Travis Sharp is the author of the poetry books Monoculture (Unicorn Press, 2024) and Yes, I Am a Corpse Flower (Knife Fork Book, 2021), a poetry pamphlet, Behind the Poet Reading Their Poem Is a Sign Saying Applause (Knife Fork Book, 2022), and the chapbooks Sinister Queer Agenda (above/ground press, 2018) and One Plus One Is Two Ones (Recreational Resources, 2018). He’s a lecturer in the Department of English at Howard University and is an editor at Essay Press.

This is Sharp's second title with above/ground press, after Sinister Queer Agenda (2018).

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) 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, March 4, 2026

Lit Balm: An Interactive Livestream Reading Series: A tribute to Larry Sawyer, March 7, 2026

Lit Balm : An Interactive Livestream Reading Series presents:
A Tribute to Larry Sawyer

Saturday, March 7, 5pm EST on Zoom: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/461603228
see the facebook event page here

Featuring Friends Reading and Reminiscing by:

Vincent Katz : Paul Hoover : Sheila Murphy : Dale Smith : Tony Trigilio : rob mclennan

With Lina Ramona Vitkauskas


Hosted by Jefrey Cyphers Wright
And the Lit Balm crew : Marc Vincenz, Cassandra Atherton, Jonathan Penton and Jon Wesick.

Friday, February 27, 2026

new from above/ground press: Vast Spaces, by John Levy

Vast Spaces
John Levy
$6

YUKI
                                               for Angella Kassube

The Japanese word for snow, plus the name Angella gave her cat. When it snows in Minneapolis, the snow never completely fills the u in Yuki’s name. Nor the opening at the top of the Y. Both spaces are too vast, as is Yuki’s spirit, an immensity which animates her entire body and which Angella understands better than anyone when she looks into Yuki’s eyes.


published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2026
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy


cover photo by the author: “Half Moon Bay”

John Levy lives in Tucson. He is married to the painter Leslie Buchanan. His collection of poems, 54 poems: selected & new, was published by Shearsman Books in 2023. 

This is Levy’s second chapbook with above/ground press, after To Assemble an Absence (2024).

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) 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, February 25, 2026

new from above/ground press: The Unknotter, by Christina Wells


The Unknotter
Christina Wells
$6

Spilling Suns

First, a ghostly trace of head,
then stomach, then paintbrush tail,
emerging from the Atlantic,
an image sharpening like a Polaroid.
My father hauling in a 50-pounder,
big mama, old and fat, fabled.
The charm of her freckles, scorched
smudges in the light, her lateral lines, silver
arrows pointing to the sun.

She can lay out more eggs
than 28 smaller ones just like her.
Longlines, draggers couldn't hold
her back. For a quarter-century
she skirted past gillnets, box-shaped
traps, sharks, the cannibals
of her own kind, surviving below
pinkish shale crevices, the dense
gelatin of the deep rushing her on.

Then, the quickness
of the act: his haul.
The gaff.
(Oh, that sharp hook.)
Slide over, belly fat glistening.
The cut.
(Oh, the ready knife.)

Sun beats its fire into her round eye
for the first time. The whole of her
belly rich, roe-distended.

Back at the dock, we children cheer, clamour.
Mother gets the camera, makes us pose
with father as he holds her up by the hook,
knot-tight, two thumbs up next to the split form,
eggs spilling
                        and spilling
                                               and spilling,

orange pricks of light.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2026
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

cover image: 

To Sea Agin I Won’t, 2025 by Kym Greeley https://www.kymgreeley.com

Christina Wells (she/her) is a multi-genre writer from Northern Arm, NL/Ktaqmkuk. Her award-winning work, which explores memory and place, has appeared in The New Quarterly, ROOM, Riddle Fence, Horseshoe Magazine, The Newfoundland Quarterly, The Fiddlehead, and Yolk. She holds an MA from Memorial University and is now a PhD student at MUN. She currently lives in St. John’s, NL.

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) 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, February 23, 2026

Kevin Spenst reviews Hope Anderson's Family Chronicles from Muffin Land (2024) via subterrain #102

our pal Kevin Spenst was good enough to provide a first review for Hope Anderson's Family Chronicles from Muffin Land (2024), as part of his regular column of chapbook reviews, in a round-up assemblage in subterrain #102! Thanks so much! As Spenst writes:

    Two different dimensions of aging are explored in Monty Reid's Vertebrata (Turret House) and Hope Anderson's Family Chronicles from Muffin Land (above/ground press). In the former, the poet writes in the poem "CV5": "The long string of bones I hang from / was never right according to doctors / who looked at the scans." The series of poems takes us from the top of the vertebrae down, reflecting on the physiological construction of the body, the Latinate and Germanic naming of parts, and Reid's own history with spinal issues. The tone and divergent subject matter are stunning fluid and touching. Hinging less on physiology, Anderson's Family Chronicles from Muffin Land are poems of family lore and slipstream lullabies dedicated to the author's grandchildren and family written from his new home in "that town, hermetically / Known as Muffin Land" (known to the rest of us as Victoria, BC). What I love in this unique blend of myths and fables is how I'd often finish a poem with a sense that the last line rhymed, only to  look back and see it didn't. (What is the secret to Hope's ghost rhymes?) My favourite poem in the collection, "The Rolling Calf", reads as a lullaby that simultaneously presents danger and the promise of safety to the poet's granddaughter Nadja. 
    In a photo taken in Victoria in 1984, Hope Anderson is in a group of poets that include Amiri Baraka, George Bowering and bpNichol. The event was organised by Hope Anderson and in a recent interview with Wayde Compton for the Capilano Review, Anderson explains the context of Sunfest and how "Poetry always comes back to us."