new from above/ground press: The creeks, by rob mclennan

The creeks
rob mclennan
$4

The creeks:

            Mercy does not come from the sky
                     Norma Cole, Coleman Hawkins Ornette Coleman


Watershed. Stretched, a bend. Erupts. To be vulgar, coarse. Urban song, a thread of water. Spills. Underground, a Mohawk sky. We catch the rain. It snowflakes, tongue. Dark, manifold. So much a mirror, corner. Questions, held. Held up. This constellation, margin. Deeper than fulfilled, arthritic postures. We were not afraid. Thin, silent, mouths. Eye on you and then.


*


Search. We hold the river, down. This resolution, meets. Mouth to concentration, mouth. I can’t go. No stream made, out-of-print. Useless, feathered, goods. What drawn and twisted, space. Snow warrant. Thin portraits. A simple-minded function. What ritual, thing. The trees, the skimming moon. Bookstalls. A brittle, darkened room. The pavement, ear. Abyss. Tonal waves direct.


*


Atlantic, between. Heavy manner, a centred abyss. This battered dawn, bashed ancient stone. The remains of civilization. First thought, Ur-thought. Grotesque. The ocean’s subdivision. Tactless. Define a score, a roundabout, a hedge. A supernatural crescent. This heated, cooling effort. Passive, energized. History, become a mine. A gravel tendril. Soothe. You, who are large in our eyes.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2013
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Produced, in part, as a handout for the 7th annual Welcome to Boog City poetry, music and theater festival, August 2-5, 2013 in New York City. Thanks much to David Kirschenbaum and Adam Tobin for their help and support. See the facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/487315468023865/

The author of more than twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, rob mclennan won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2010, and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012. His most recent titles include the poetry collection Songs for little sleep, (Obvious Epiphanies, 2012) and a second novel, missing persons (2009). The Uncertainty Principle: stories, is scheduled to appear in spring 2014. He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 402 McLeod St #3, Ottawa ON K2P 1A6 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: eckhoff, MacLeod, Christie, MillAr + McNair

kevin mcpherson eckhoff keeps posting over at Goodreads: Kathryn MacLeod has a new poem as part of the Tuesday poem series on the dusie blog; Jason Christie takes part in an impromptu residency in Vernon, British Columbia at the Mackie Lake House; Jay MillAr is interviewed over at The Toronto Quarterly; and Christine McNair answers the Poets in Profile questions over at Open Book: Ontario.

William Hawkins' 60s band, The Children, finally release their first album

Ottawa poet, musician, songwriter and above/ground press author William Hawkins is well-known in musical circles for, among other accomplishments, his participation in the 60s band, The Children, which has finally released a first album from 1960s masters. If you want to know more about William Hawkins, check out the profile I wrote on him recently, here, soon after he was one of two inaugural inductees into the VerseOttawa Hall of Honour. See here for the link to the original story (with audio files) on the CBC - All In A Day website, and here for the direct link (with audio) to ordering the cd from True North. As the CBC website writes:

The Children, now much older, finally release an album

Bruce Cockburn, David Wiffen, Bill Hawkins, Neville Wells, Richard Patterson, Sandy Crawley, Chris Anderson, Peter Hodgson.

You may recognize some of those names for being successful musicians in their own right. But for a few years in 1960s Ottawa, those guys were a band, a band called The Children. They never released any recorded material...until now.

True North Records has just released The Children -- Time Capsule: The Unreleased 1960s Masters, and Alan tracked down Bill, Sneezy and Neville to see what they think of digging up the past.

some author activity: Martin, Brockwell, Best, Tucker, Sand, Mangold, mclennan + McNair,

Camille Martin, Stephen Brockwell, Ashley-Elizabeth Best and Aaron Tucker all have new poems online in the new issue of The Puritan; Kaia Sand reads with Maged Zaher at The Switch, Portland OR on August 9, 2013; Sarah Mangold reads with Laura Newman and Gregory Laynor at the Hedreen Gallery at Seattle University, Seattle WA on July 25, 2013; and don't forget rob mclennan and Christine McNair's combined reading and chapbook launch at the In/Words Reading Series in Ottawa on July 31, 2013!

Cameron Anstee reads with Casteels, Miscione + Papaxanthos in Ottawa, August 10, 2013

above/ground press author Cameron Anstee reads in Ottawa at Raw Sugar Cafe [see the facebook event here], lovingly hosted by Michael e. Casteels. As the event reads:

On Saturday, August 10, Raw Sugar (692 Somerset St. W.) will be hosting an afternoon of poetry and fiction. There will be books for sale and writers to point at and say “Hey, do I know you?” or “My brother’s a writer!” or “I like your use of semi-colons” or “Do you know where I can find the nearest pub? I thought there’d be wrestling here tonight.”

BUT SERIOUSLY: It'll be a great afternoon of literature and we hope all of you can come. Bring a friend or two -- the more the merrier!

Cameron Anstee lives and writes in Ottawa ON where he runs Apt. 9 Press and is pursuing a PhD in English Literature at the University of Ottawa.

Christine Miscione is a Canadian fiction writer. Her work has appeared in various Canadian publications, such as Exile: The Literary Quarterly, This Magazine, and The Puritan. In 2011, she was the recipient of the Hamilton Arts Award for Best Emerging Writer. In 2012, Christine’s story, Skin Just, won first place in the Gloria Vanderbilt/Exile Editions C.V.C Short Fiction Contest (emerging writer category). Her debut short story collection, Auxiliary Skins, will be released August 2013. Find her at christinemiscione.wordpress.com/

Michael e. Casteels has self-published over a dozen chapbooks of poetry and artwork. His poetry has also appeared in: 529 (Proper Tales Press), Sterling Magazine, In/Words, and That Not Forgotten (Hidden Brook Press). He has work forthcoming in The Rusty Toque. He was nominated for the emerging artist award in the 2012 Premier's Awards for Excellence in the Arts. He lives in Kingston, Ontario where he runs Puddles of Sky Press. Check out Puddles of Sky Press at puddlesofskypress.com.

Nicholas Papaxanthos is currently living in Montreal, pursuing an MA with a focus in creative writing at Concordia University. He recently put together the chapbook Teeth, Untucked with Proper Tales Press, and has been published in the anthologies Lake Effect 5 and 529, as well as in The New Chief Tongue 10, Sandwich Review, and This Magazine.

Raw Sugar Cafe
692 Somerset W., Ottawa, Ontario K1R 6P4
Saturday, August 10, 2013; 2:00pm until 5:00pm

Michael Dennis reviews Aaron Tucker's punchlines

Ottawa poet Michael Dennis was good enough to review Aaron Tucker's chapbook punchlines (2013) over at his blog. Thanks, Michael!

new from above/ground press: The Laurentian Book of Movement by Christine McNair and rob mclennan

The Laurentian Book of Movement
Christine McNair and rob mclennan
$3

The Laurentian Book of Movement

The moths die as soon as I learn their names. I hear nothing from the bats but what the machine tells me. They are sending their best wishes, reminding me to breathe.
        Richard Froude, Fabric

In 1842, Augustin-Norbert Morin walked into the woods. There were only woods.

The forest houses one kind of logic. There is more than one. You called out names under your breath. You stepped out into fleshy rain.

The constellations were in error. We read the sounds of birds.

The skyline, black against the night blue. The first few pages of the weather wrote a thunderstorm. The eaves were full of leaves. Rain water overflowed the porch. We chomped out portions of late summer, reckless portions of Aurora Borealis.

A thread pulls powder across various landmarks. We walk into the Metro. This is not a pilgrimage.

The English language corresponds with optical illusions. One looks too close sometimes, and words begin to shimmer, flick. A chance occurrence, breathes.

There were only woods, north-rolling mountain range a snake across the continent. My mouth full of leaves.

The bed was rich of metal, sleep. I walked into your shoulder.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2013
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Christine McNair's work has appeared in sundry places. Her first collection of poetry Conflict was published by BookThug in 2012. Her chapbook notes from a cartywheel was published by AngelHousePress in 2011 and her chapbook pleasantries and other misdemeanours was published by Apt. 9 press in 2013. As a runner-up in the 2013 Battle of the Bards, she has been invited to read at the Toronto International Festival of Authors and was shortlisted for the 2011 Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative poetry. She works as a book conservator in Ottawa.

The author of more than twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, rob mclennan won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2010, and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012. His most recent titles include the poetry collection Songs for little sleep, (Obvious Epiphanies, 2012) and a second novel, missing persons (2009). The Uncertainty Principle: stories, is scheduled to appear in spring 2014. He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com

This is the second chapbook from their collaboration-in-progress, after Prelude: selections from a collaboration (above/ground press, 2012).

Produced for a co-featured reading at the In/Words Reading Series, The Clocktower BrewHouse, (downstairs), 575 Bank Street, Ottawa; 9pm, Wednesday July 31, 2013.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 402 McLeod St #3, Ottawa ON K2P 1A6 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Love's Not The Way To B after C: Rogal, Tucker + Babineau in Toronto, July 28, 2013

above/ground press authors Stan Rogal, Aaron Tucker and Kemeny Babineau read at the BafterC and Love's Not The Way To double launch in Toronto on Sunday, July 28, 2013 at 6pm. As the facebook event reads:

Stan Rogal and BafterC Magazine are holding a joint launch upstairs at The Madison in Toronto on July 28th at 6pm. madisonavenuepub.com

Stan Rogal will be reading from his latest collection of poetry Love's Not The Way To which is a collection of urban haiku dedicated to the life and work of American writer Richard Brautigan.

Contributors from the latest issue of B after C magazine, published by BookThug, will be reading from work in the magazine as well as other work of their own. This issue of B after C is unique in that it celebrates long time Toronto poet and on-line presence John Barlow. Reading alongside Barlow will be poets Aaron Tucker, Sam Kaufman, Kemeny Babineau & the itinerant Nic Coivert. Others, also, may appear.

Madison Avenue Pub & Restaurant
14 Madison Ave, Toronto, Ontario M5R 2S1

some author activity: Smith, Anstee, Butler, Ferguson, Abel + Earl,

Jessica Smith has some new poems up at Tarpaulin Sky; Cameron Anstee has a new poem up as part of the dusie "Tuesday poem" series; Jenna Butler has won the CV2 2-Day Poem Contest for her piece "Ella & Marilyn at the Mocambo"; Jesse Patrick Ferguson has two new poems over at The Mackinac; Jordan Abel gets an "author spotlight" over at Jessica Kluthe's blog; and, in case you didn't see it, Amanda Earl wrote a pre-reading post in anticipation of tonight's reading with Jessica Smith and Marilyn Irwin as part of The Factory Reading Series.

new from above/ground press: OTHERWISE SMOOTH, by Rosmarie Waldrop

OTHERWISE SMOOTH
Rosmarie Waldrop
$4

How daily my life. How tiny the impurities around which words might accrue. Worlds. Whorls. Pearls? Once I stood in a town where nothing was left unchanged but the clouds driven from the east. Now I learn from the sea. Always the same, always different, brackish body, uncertain. The unusual I hold at bay by taking pictures. To let it accrue to memory without having to experience it? Do we live this way, walking, as if we could, on thin air? But the sycamore stands in the yard all day and all night. And now, though still lifeless in appearance, quickens. Roots gripping farther down.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2013
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Rosmarie Waldrop’s recent poetry books are Driven to Abstraction, Curves to the Apple, Blindsight (New Directions), Splitting Images (Zasterle), and Love, Like Pronouns (Omnidawn). Her Collected Essays, Dissonance (if you are interested), was published by University of Alabama Press in 2005.

Two novels, The Hanky of Pippin's Daughter and A Form/of Taking/It All are available in one paperback (Northwestern UP, 2001).  

She has translated 14 volumes of Edmond Jabés’s work (her memoir, Lavish Absence: Recalling and Rereading Edmond Jabés, is out from Wesleyan UP) as well as books by Emmanuel Hocquard, Jacques Roubaud, and, from the German, Friederike Mayröcker, Elke Erb, Oskar Pastior, Gerhard Rühm, Ulf Stolterfoht.

She lives in Providence, RI. where she co-edits Burning Deck books with Keith Waldrop.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 402 McLeod St #3, Ottawa ON K2P 1A6 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

The FREE VERSE Anthology launch, July 9, 1993

Alexander Monker was good enough to scan this flyer he found recently, for the launch of the first-ever above/ground press publication, The FREE VERSE ANTHOLOGY (1993), with poems by Sylvia Adams, Matthew Barlow, Henry Beissel, George Bowering, Thea Bowering, Agnes Bright, Brian Burke, Terry Ann Carter, Richard Carter, David Collins, Frank J. Cormier, Michael Dennis, Heather Ferguson, Marty Flomen, Ellen Field, Mark Frutkin, Bronwen Geddes, Gary Geddes, Bruce Harding, James Hewitt-White, jimmy s.g. ioannidis, Doug Ivison, Clare Latremouille, Christopher Levenson, Joy Hewitt Mann, Karen Massey, Rob McLennan, Karen Moffat, Alexander Monker, Susan Musgrave, Natalie Neill, Heather Tisdale-Nisbet, Diana Nobrega, Rose Oksaboose, Christopher Pollard, Kimcha Rajkumar, Stan Rogal, Jamie Russell, Dawn Sims, Christopher Sorr and Chris Wind.

Twenty years ago, tonight. Where does all the time go?

Ryan Pratt reviews recent titles by Jason Christie and Jessica Smith,

Our pal Ryan Pratt was good enough to review Jason Christie's Government (2013) and Jessica Smith's MNEMOTECHNICS (2013) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks, Ryan!

And don't forget, Jessica does her first reading in Ottawa this coming Saturday night, as part of The Factory Reading Series!

kevin mcpherson eckhoff launches Our Teeth: a community press,

above/ground press author kevin mcpherson eckhoff has launched a brand-new publishing enterprise! As he writes on the site: "In 2007, kevin mcpherson eckhoff began a small press called by the skin of me teeth, which published approximately 14 chapbooks & scat over 3 years. After a year of quiet, the press is ready to resurface as Our Teeth: a community publishing experiment where anyone can create books, prints, sculptures, et cetera using the resources at Not Really, including a tabletop letterpress, label-makers, old board games, recycled books and many other worded objects!

Our Teeth is a community press! What does that mean? You tell me!"

some author activity: Smith, Blouin, McElroy, mclennan, beaulieu + Poe,

Jessica Smith has some poems up in the first issue of N/A; co-author Michael Blouin's "On process" essay is the fourth piece in the ongoing "On writing" series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter; Gil McElroy and rob mclennan have new essays in the seventh issue of seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics; derek beaulieu gets some love from Eric Schmaltz over at Lemonhhound; and Deborah Poe's reading at Ivy Writers Paris, May, 2013 has been posted (with a report) up at YouTube.

The Factory Reading Series presents: Jessica Smith, Amanda Earl + Marilyn Irwin, Saturday July 13, 2013

span-o (the small press action network - ottawa) presents:

Jessica Smith (Birmingham AL)
Amanda Earl (Ottawa)
+ Marilyn Irwin (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Saturday, July 13, 2013;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)

Jessica Smith [pictured above; drawing by Alixandria Bamford], Founding Editor of Foursquare and name magazines, serves as the Librarian for Indian Springs School, where she runs its Visiting Writers Series. She is the author of numerous chapbooks, most recently mnemotechnics (above/ground press 2013), and one full-length collection, Organic Furniture Cellar (Outside Voices 2006). about.me/jessicasmith

Amanda Earl's most recent chapbook with above/ground press is Sex First & Then A Sandwich & her most recent broadside is "Trieste," published by In/Words Magazine & Press in June, 2013. Scattered about the Northern & Southern Hemispheres, her poems have been published in Australia, Canada, Europe and the USA. Two manuscripts have been shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch Innovative Poetry Award. She is the managing editor of Bywords.ca and the (fallen) angel of AngelHousePress. Amanda will be reading from a new series of prose poems.

The winner of Arc Poetry Magazine's 2013 Diana Brebner Prize, Marilyn Irwin's work has been published by above/ground press, Bywords, ottawater, Peter F. Yacht Club,and most recently, the Canadian section of this year’s New American Writing. A graduate of Algonquin College's Creative Writing program, she has released three chapbooks: for when you pick daisies (2010), flicker (2012), and little nothings (2012).