Cameron Anstee reviews Stephen Brockwell + Ben Ladouceur titles;

Ottawa poet and Apt. 9 publisher Cameron Anstee serves up some reviews for Stephen Brockwell's Impossible Books (The Carleton Installment) (2010) and Ben Ladouceur's [photo from his recent launch] LIME KILN QUAY ROAD (2011).

Amanda Earl on Stan Rogal (from his recent Factory Reading Series appearance);

a note Ottawa poet, publisher and blogger Amanda Earl wrote on discovering Toronto writer Stan Rogal's work at the most recent Factory reading. Very nice!

Some of Rogal's above/ground press works include the chapbooks In Search of the Emerald City (1997) and All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (2004).

Here's a note I wrote on Rogal myself, some time ago.

new from above/ground press: Ben Ladouceur’s LIME KILN QUAY ROAD

There was a rock rumoured to grow

one inch every year.

It was a letdown.

The heath once housed

a witch

but then they built the church

so she became some nightjars

and took off.

It’s something we do

in the countryside.

We don’t grow a great deal

and depart

when the birds we’re made of

have had enough.

LIME KILN QUAY ROAD

by Ben Ladouceur

$4

published in Ottawa by above/ground press

in an edition of 200 copies, May 2011

a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

write for submission/subscription info, c/o 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, Ottawa ON K1R 6R7,

or check out rob_mclennan@hotmail.com or abovegroundpress.blogspot.com

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; 

outside Canada, add $2 & in US $) to: rob 

mclennan, 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, 

Ottawa Ontario Canada K1R 6R7.

 

After a year spent living and working in various towns throughout England, Ben Ladouceur spent the summer of 2010 employed at a youth hostel in the hamlet of Blaxhall, Suffolk. He is now living back in Ottawa, his hometown. His poetry has most recently been featured in Ottawater, Cadaverine, and the anthology Pith and Wry: Canadian Poetry (Scrivener Press, ed. Susan McMaster, 2010). Previous chapbooks include: Nuuk, In/Words Chapbook Series, 2008; Alert, Angel House Press, 2009; The Argossey, Apt. 9 Press, 2009; The Bottom of the Sea, The Moose & Pussy, 2011

Recent above/ground press titles reviewed in Jones Av., by Allan Brown

Here is a write-up received this week in the new issue of Toronto poetry quarterly Jones Av. (Vol. XV, No. IV, Spring 2011), by British Columbia poet/critic (and Jones. Av. contributing editor) Allan Brown. Thank you for the attention, sir!

These recent above/ground chapbooks (c/o 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, Ottawa ON, K1R 6R7) combine a familiar format with four well-varied voices.

Cameron Anstee’s serial poem Frank St. (March 2010, $4.00) is a study of house, history ("in 1878 this address / was at the city limit”), art and self. He moves through his new/old home precisely but gently, instructing himself and us how to relax, “learn to stop,” in order to then “see better, poem.”

Marilyn Irwin’s first chapbook for when you pick daisies (July 2010, $4.00) moves playfully through unexpected sights “carnation imprints” (“the dirt on my window”) and sounds “bullfrog chorus kuhcoffaknee” (“untitled”). The intricate title piece expands the “silver puddles” of the flowers (poems) “into meadow shadows” and allows us to “watch sea strands saturate.”

Marcus McCann plays more academic literary games in Town in a long day of leaving (March 2010, $3.00). the last and first poems expand upon material from Susanna Moodie’s Roughing It in the Bush, from the quiet intimations of “Many voices murmuring in the anxious / beings” (“Town”) to the vital “Dancing, quivering, dazzling” of “We stick to the wind.” Sometimes the teacher cracks a joke, as in his re-arrangement of the pop song “Crazy” in which “I ache, I even spun // thunder.”

Founder rob mclennan has issued several of his own titles, most recently 16 Yonge (August 2010, $4.00). A kind of meandering street-scape, its tones shift from the punning query of “how does your Gardiner grow, / expressly” through the suggestive description of “a dusty lake, a silken sandbar” to the final poignant wondering: “what can one safely say / of sleep, // that stolen river.”

above/ground press participating in Niagara Falls, Toronto + Ottawa small press fairs;

above/ground press will be participating in small press book fairs (with new wares a'plenty) in:

Niagara Falls, ON: A Book Affair, Saturday, June 4th, 2011, hosted by The Niagara Literary Arts Festival. information here.

Toronto ON: The Toronto Small Press Book Fair, Sunday, June 19,2011. information here.

Ottawa ON: the ottawa small press book fair, Saturday, June 25, 2011, hosted by the small press action network - ottawa (span-o). information here.

for further information on small press book fairs across Canada, check out the small press book fair blog.

hopefully we will see you at one, if not all of these! best,

new from above/ground press: THE DUSTY OWL QUARTERLY VOLS. 27-42

THE DUSTY OWL QUARTERLY VOLS. 27-42
edited by rob mclennan
$4

Contributors:
Cameron Anstee
Amanda Earl
Laurie Fuhr
Warren Dean Fulton
Marilyn Irwin
Alastair Larwill
John Lavery
Marcus McCann
rob mclennan
Christine McNair
Pearl Pirie
Roland Prevost
Monty Reid
Sandra Ridley
+ Janice Tokar.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
in an edition of 200 copies, May 8, 2011,
for the triumphant return of Steve “Dusty Al” Zytveld
to The Dusty Owl Reading Series
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
write for submission/subscription info, c/o 858 Somerset
Street West, main floor, Ottawa ON K1R 6R7,
or check out rob_mclennan@hotmail.com or abovegroundpress.blogspot.com

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2 & in US $) to: rob mclennan, 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, Ottawa Ontario Canada K1R 6R7.