some author activity: Armantrout, Maloukis, Heroux, Cannon, Bolster + Nećakov,

Rae Armantrout has a new poem up at the London Review of Books; Rose Maloukis offers a list of what she's been reading lately over at The New Quarterly; Jason Heroux has work up in the Spotlight series; Frances Cannon is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Stephanie Bolster is included in the "Canadian Poets Series" via Peripety and/or Tronies; and Lillian Nećakov has a new poem up in Paul Vermeersch's "In the Third Sleep" series.

The Nelson Ball Prize: Margaret Christakos wins! and Peter Jaeger's shortlist write-up,

Congratulations to Toronto poet Margaret Christakos, who recently won The Nelson Ball Prize for That Audible Slippage (University of Alberta Press, 2024)! 2025 judges Bev Daurio and James McDonald included, as you might already know, Peter Jaeger's Selected Memoirs (above/ground press, 2024) on their shortlist, so here's the judge's citations for such (you can see the citations for all five of the shortlist titles, including Christakos', as well as a short interview with Christakos, here):

Selected Memoirs (above/ground press)
by Peter Jaeger

Peter Jaeger is the author of several books and has written on a wide variety of topics, from ecology to John Cage. His chapbook Selected Memoirs addresses six and a half decades of one life, in thirty passages varying in length from twenty-five words to a couple of pages. Some passages cover several years, some only one. Much is missing; most of the life under consideration; yet the book feels complete and open at the same time. Its observations are as much by omission as by what they state; there are great gaps of time and context between some sections, between years, between sentences within entries. The passages and the spaces between them combine to create a perfect broken mashed-together record of existence, implying that much is forgotten.

Jaeger touches on the intellectual, the mundane, sweetness and regret, the greater world, the inner world, worlds imagined. There is a tipping between the real, and memory. Jaeger touches on horror (2001), a puzzling comment by a colleague (1997-98), unique experiences in the real world, "Scuba drift in the Red Sea" (2002-03) and times of want: "That winter Frank and I wore our heavy coats inside the house and clutched empty whiskey bottles filled with hot water to keep our hands warm." (1983).

Listing topics and descrying polarities and their subtle tensions, however, does not do the book justice, because so much of its joy is contained in its delicate, startling details and striking, unexpected shifts. The entry for 1966 reads: "Meditating in Bellwoods Park on a sunny afternoon in Toronto, I saw myself and the world as a continuous field of subatomic particles. I still remained deeply interested in the alphabet."

Although written in seemingly straightforward prose, Selected Memoirs is replete with moments of incredible writing, and a participatory poetics, where gaps and leaps ask the reader to consider all that is not there and what is hidden. Jaeger creates a small world of serenity, by turns warm, winsome, vulnerable, and quietly profound.

some author activity: Boyle, Betts, Banks, Barwin, Sawyer + Barwin,

Frances Boyle has new work up at Bad Dog Mag; Gregory Betts has a poem up at NewPoetry; Chris Banks has a new poem and a short essay up at The Woodlot; Betts also appears with collaborators Lillian Allen and Gary Barwin via "Poetry in Utter Space," The Poet Speaks Podcast S10E7; Larry Sawyer has a poem up in the "Tuesday poem" series; and Gary Barwin has a poem up in Paul Vermeersch's "In the Third Sleep" series.

new from above/ground press: Weeds of Canada, by Dawn Macdonald

Weeds of Canada
Dawn Macdonald
$6

Horsetail Family

down she dug damp-hollow, found
underground terminal cones, frowned, sad.
for this may cause a sand-like deficiency
of animals, she said. I’ve read
that a veterinarian could tell. whatsoever
you’ll use for the scouring shall
well sink hollow, drain, black teeth out
the spore-case. take the stairs
at every chance. name
rootstock, flush
water-table, pass
from this table, salt, to be excused,
whorl, sheath, grace.

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

Dawn Macdonald lives in Whitehorse, Yukon, where she grew up without electricity or running water. Her poetry collection Northerny (University of Alberta Press) won the 2025 Canadian First Book Prize and was longlisted for the Nelson Ball prize.

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

some author activity: Tardi, Sawyer, Melancon, Gordon, Kemp + Naughton,

Mark Tardi writes on the late Larry Sawyer for the Poetry Foundation website; Jérôme Melancon appears in the Canadian Poets Series via Peripety and/or Tronies; a trio of videos of Nada Gordon reading in Manhattan, along with a short note, sit at the end of this substack post by Vladislav Davidzon; Penn Kemp has a series of poems for the late Barry Dempster now up at Public Reverie; and Katie Naughton has a poem up at Poetry Daily.

new from above/ground press: SPECTACLE/SPECTATOR, by Noah Sparrow

SPECTACLE/SPECTATOR
Noah Sparrow
$6

Meditations During my Hair Emergency

Every Wednesday 
an hour of my day 
is filled 
like the bucket 
right by my socks

The soap gradually 
climbs further 
into nailbeds,
the floor 
washed in
a weekly
showering

And to make it 
all better,
I’m wearing
a hair-mask from
Sephora, from
a kind of
buy-something
get-something-else
sort of deal, 

And now this room
is stripped of bad air,
refilled from 
all kinds of soap of 
floor beneath me 
Stripped of a dusting
to make room
as I prepare
to my sanity to roll out
like an overly commanding
carpet, waiting to 
be stepped on
and kind of wanting it 
to be that way

This kind of removal of
dust and crumbs
would be borderline 
excessive anywhere else
but here

And an hour ago 
I saw a man
unhoused,
washing somebody 
else's car

A car holds
little-to-no
boundaries on where
it can move and
if you don’t believe 
me, just look at
the commercials,
Look at the men
rolling through forestry,
framed by the evergreens,
the occasional bear

If I tried to clean off
that mans floors, 
it would take a
million hours and a
million buckets and all 
the borders 
would collapse behind us

If you look behind 
the car, 
you’ll hear
more and more honking
until the driver
speeds through,
until the bubbles of soap 
forfeit clinging onto wrists,
until seasons change
and the floor
turns into ice

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

Noah Sparrow is a Montreal-Tiohtià:ke based writer. His chapbook Here I am Dying at an Average Pace is forthcoming with Cactus Press in 2026. He won the Gabriel Safdie Poetry Award, was a finalist for the 2024 Montreal International Poetry Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2025 International Metatron Poetry Prize. Check out his work in The Fiddlehead, Scrivener Creative Review, or find more at noahsparrow.com

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

new from above/ground press: EVAD, by Glenn Bach

EVAD 
Glenn Bach
$6

From the waves


between and of the sea. What travelers 
are saying: is this our place. Maybe they unfurled 


a map giving          terrain___TIDES


the mighty Pacific before we knew better


a map revealing
a great dream this is a far cry. We come alive
with streets     —who imagined the quality of the places 
being built here. Why was the city not like this


the whole time? Our demise in story
after story. The signs in the stars the borders


are not strictly defined by the roaring of these 
waters. Open space the shoreline inches forward


of the earth the showing forth
 

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

EVAD is excerpted from a longer sequence, Atlas, which began in 2003 as a sound art project but has since evolved into an open-ended long poem.

Glenn Bach is a lapsed sound artist and retired educator whose major project, Atlas, is a long poem about place and our (mis)understanding of the world. Excerpts have been published here and there, including two micro-chapbooks from Stone Corpse Press and Ghost City Press. Glenn documents his work at glennbach.com.

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