some author activity: Waldrop, Hall, Barwin, eckhoff, Wilkinson + mclennan,

Rosmarie Waldrop has a new poem as part of the dusie Tuesday poem series; Phil Hall is interviewed over at The Toronto Quarterly; Gary Barwin interviews kevin mcpherson eckhoff on his "Their Biography" project over at Jacket2; Joshua Marie Wilkinson participates in Green Mountains Review's "Why Write?" series with the essay "Or: A Hollow Little Nimbus of Grime: How I Made Certain of My Poems"; and rob mclennan has two new poems, as well as an interview, in the second issue of The Mackinac.

Apartment613 interviews: Gary Barwin, Marthe Reed, Marcus McCann and Monty Reid

Alejandro Butros was kind enough to interview above/ground chapbook authors Gary Barwin, Marthe Reed, Marcus McCann and Monty Reid recently for the sake of an article he was working on for Apartment613 on the 20th anniversary of above/ground press.

Since the original article by Butros could only include short excerpts from each of them, Gary Barwin was good enough to post his full responses over at his blog. Subsequently, Marthe Reed did the same, as did Marcus McCann. For the sake of completion, I include Monty Reid's responses as well to get a sense of the full range of materials. Thanks all for your generous work and words!

Monty Reid's responses are below:

1. What does the work of above/ground press mean to you?

above/ground means persistent, stubborn, wide-ranging, generous, cheap, self-reliant, unpretentious, hopeful, short, colorful, timely, funny, astute, alert, energetic, over-punctuated, under-capitalized, surprising, repetitive, capacious, serious, frustrating, exhilarating and available.

2. Please share a memorable anecdote about above/ground press.

I don't have an anecdote, just one piece of advice: be careful with offers to help move the above/ground library or any of rob's books - there are lots of books, and lots of stairs.

3. When did you first hear bout a/g press? How has it evolved, if at all, since your first interaction?

I had heard of above/ground before I moved to Ottawa in 1999, but don't know if I'd actually seen any of its work.  I may have first heard of it from the Contributor's Notes in other magazines.  One of the charms of the press is that it hasn't evolved much, at least not in the time I've known it.  It's well-adapted to its niche and there's little pressure for it to change, it survives and meets the needs of its environment.  In fact, if it were to change, it would be another press, which rob has already started.

4. Poets are often overlooked by the press and publishers. Given that this article will be written for an audience that is comprised mostly of non-writers, can you please explain how critical a publisher like a/g press is.

small independent publishers like above/ground are crucial in the literary community.  They give an opportunity for new writers to make an appearance, and for more-established writers to try out work that might be outside their routine.  It creates hope, and at least a small audience, for writers, and it offers a model for other potential publishers.  I think the abundance of micropresses in Ottawa owes a great deal to the consistent presence of above/ground. 

5. As an Ottawa poet, what is your view of your fellow poets in the NCR?

the community of writers in Ottawa is varied, of course, but at the moment it's particularly lively and supportive.  It's  a great pleasure to be working alongside people like Stephen Brockwell, Sandra Ridley, Michael Dennis, jw curry, Christine McNair, Dave O'Meara, Mike Blouin, Pearl Pirie and so many others.  While there is an excellent support network within this community, I think Ottawa poets have a particularly hard time getting broader attention because of the overwhelming dominance of nearby Toronto in what is a very small market, and the general perception across the country of Ottawa as a government town and little else.  In part, it's this very difficulty in reaching a wider audience that makes the Ottawa scene so rich and drives it diy ethos.

new from above/ground press: The Peter F Yacht Club #19; above/ground press 20th anniversary special!

The Peter F Yacht Club #19
above/ground press 20th anniversary special
edited by rob mclennan
[see the link here for information on the previous issue] [see the link here for a history of the publication]
$6

With new writing by a host of Peter F Yacht Club regulars and irregulars including Steven Artelle, Cameron Anstee, Gary Barwin, derek beaulieu, Joe Blades, Mark Cochrane, Amanda Earl, JM Francheteau, Marilyn Irwin, Marcus McCann, rob mclennan, Roland Prevost, Monty Reid, Stan Rogal, Janice Tokar + Vivian Vavassis.

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

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: Armantrout, Martin, curry + Ross, mclennan + Barwin

Catharine Wagner interviewed poet Rae Armantrout recently for POETRYEATER; Camille Martin has some new poems up at On Barcelona; jwcurry and Stuart Ross did some sound poetry improv in the open set of The Dusty Owl Reading Series, June 23, 2013 in Ottawa; rob mclennan has a new prose poem, "Life, Sentence," up at Otoliths; and have you seen the ongoing pieces that Gary Barwin has been writing for Jacket2?

Aaron Tucker: an essay, and an interview,

 

Aaron Tucker sure has been busy lately. He spoke of writing the poems included in his punchlines (above/ground press, 2013) in an essay for The Town Crier, and an interview in The Toronto Quarterly. Where might Tucker end up next?

Open Book: Ontario: Gary Barwin and Monty Reid,

Both Gary Barwin and Monty Reid have participated in Open Book: Ontario's "Poets in Profile" interviews, anticipating the twentieth anniversary reading and launch this Friday night. Barwin's interview was posted on Monday, and Reid's interview was posted on Tuesday.

new from above/ground press: After Swann, by Marthe Reed

After Swann
Marthe Reed
$4

21

these dreams
stop like a clock
a malady

too irresistible
this black cavity
precisely the same

she might have a red
principle
a certain type of femininity

her subjection
fixed in
space

oh, marvelous
the tombs
of sunlight straying

impossible for me
the vagrancy
of her

detachment
that face
deliberately unfinished

present except
in a flood of blue light
that current

we imagine
almost ours
that sort of tenderness
the instant of pain
the special pleasure
and seize

the mysterious object
still alive
buried in a couch of grass

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

The text for these constraint-driven poems is collaged from the Moncrieff translation of Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way, accessed via Project Gutenberg.

Marthe Reed is the author of three books: (em)bodied bliss (Moria Books 2013), Gaze (Black Radish Books 2010) and Tender Box, A Wunderkammer (Lavender Ink 2007). A fourth book, Pleth, a collaboration with j hastain, will appear September 2013 from Unlikely Books; a fifth will be published by Lavender Ink (2014). She has also published four chapbooks as part of the Dusie Kollektiv. Her poetry has appeared in New American Writing, Golden Handcuffs Review, New Orleans Review, HOW2, MiPOesias, Fairy Tale Review, Exquisite Corpse, BlazeVOX, and The Offending Adam, among others. Her manuscript, an earth of sweetness dances in the vein, was a finalist in Ahsahta Press’ 2006 Sawtooth Poetry Contest; her manuscript Nights Reading was a finalist for the Elizabeth P. Braddock Prize (Coconut Books). An essay on Claudia Rankine’s The Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue appears in American Letters and Commentary.

Marthe Reed will be launching After Swann in Ottawa as part of the above/ground press 20th anniversary reading/launch/party on August 23, 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

Apt 613: Alejandro Bustos on above/ground press' twentieth anniversary,

Over at Apt 613, Alejandro Bustos was good enough to write an article on the above/ground press twentieth anniversary, "Celebrating 20 years of poetry with above/ground press," with input from Marthe Reed, Gary Barwin, Monty Reid and Marcus McCann, as well as a mention of Cameron Anstee and Apt 9 Press. Thanks, Alejandro! Here's hoping we even see twenty more...

new from above/ground press: Labradoodle, An essay on David McGimpsey, by Marcus McCann

Labradoodle
An essay on David McGimpsey
Marcus McCann
$4

A primer on David McGimpsey for those who have never heard of David McGimpsey

The poet laureate of the tragic, the mentally
unwell, and poor dressers, all who opted out
of the grading curve of the mall parking lot.
Patron saint of the dive bars of Montreal.

Every poem unfolds like an episode
of Full House. Funny, and then, wham!
a surprise “life lesson.” And a hug.
Except, rather than the cast of Full House,

it's you doing the hugging, and the man
you're hugging is a prickly SOB
who doesn't want to be hugged, he will tell you,
even though deep, deep down he does.

That and the Olsen twins. People say,
Oh, David McGimpsey, he's the guy who writes
funny poems. Which is a little like saying,
Hey, he's the guy with the really funny cancer.

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

An earlier version was “Published privately for Mark Schaan, with love, / on the event of Christmas 2011.” by The Onion Union.

Marcus McCann is the author of two previous above/ground titles: Heteroskeptical (2007) and Town in a Long Day of Leaving (2010). Labradoodle is his ninth chapbook. He is a winner of the John Newlove Award and the EJ Pratt Medal for poetry. His two trade collections Soft Where (2009, Chaudiere Books) and The Hard Return (2012, Insomniac) can be found at Glad Day, a bookshop he co-owns with some 20 queer radicals in Toronto. marcusmccann.com
 
Marcus McCann will be launching Labradoodle in Ottawa as part of the above/ground press 20th anniversary reading/launch/party on August 23, 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

Ryan Pratt reviews Aaron Tucker's punchlines (2013)

Ryan Pratt was good enough to review Aaron Tucker's chapbook punchlines (2013) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks, Ryan!

some author activity: Christie, Martin, Barwin, Hancock + Robertson,

Jason Christie's iROBOT has been converted into a play! reworked by Christie, Natalee Caple, Mark Hopkins and Charles Netto, it appears as iROBOT Theatre through Swallow-a-Bicycle Theatre in Calgary from September 11-22, 2013; Camille Martin has a new poem up at Similar Peaks; Gary Barwin recently did a talk over at the Power Plant as part of a series of responses on their exhibit Postscript: Writing on Conceptual Art; Brecken Hancock interviewed Lisa Robertson over at CWILA; and Stephen Brockwell has a new poem posted as part of the dusie "Tuesday poem" series.

new from above/ground press: Moan Coach, by Monty Reid

Moan Coach
Monty Reid
$4

She was asked to be part of a production of the Vagina Monologues but after a couple of rehearsals they said she wasn’t convincing enough.

Convincing enough at what, she thought? It’s your moan, they said, it needs some work.
You have to moan as though you weren’t doing it for an audience.  You’re going to need some help.

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

Monty Reid is an Ottawa writer. His most recent full-length collections are Disappointment Island (Chaudiere) and The Luskville Reductions (Brick). Recently he has published chapbooks with various small presses, including above/ground, Apt. 9, Gaspereau, corrupt, red ceilings, and many others. His new mistranslation of Nicolas Guillen’s El Gran Zoo is forthcoming from BuschekBooks. He currently works as Managing Editor of Arc Poetry Magazine and plays guitar and mandolin in the band Call Me Katie. 

This is Reid’s fourth above/ground press chapbook after Six Songs for the Mammoth Steppe (2000), cuba A book (2005) and In the Garden (sept series) (2011).

Monty Reid will be launching Moan Coach in Ottawa as part of the above/ground press 20th anniversary reading/launch/party on August 23, 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

The Factory Reading Series presents: Nguyen, Smith + Rowley, September 21, 2013

span-o (the small press action network - ottawa) presents:
The Factory Reading Series
 
with readings by:

Hoa Nguyen (Toronto)
Dale Smith (Toronto)
+ Mari-Lou Rowley (Saskatoon)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Saturday, September 21, 2013;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)

Born in the Mekong Delta and raised in the Washington, D.C. area, Hoa Nguyen [see the profile on her up at Open Book: Toronto here] studied Poetics at New College of California in San Francisco. With the poet Dale Smith, Nguyen founded Skanky Possum, a poetry journal and book imprint in Austin, TX where they lived for 14 years. The author of eight books and chapbooks, she currently lives in Toronto where she teaches poetics in a private workshop and at Ryerson University. Wave Books published her third full-length collection of poems, As Long As Trees Last, in September 2012.

Dale Smith [see his "12 or 20 questions" here] teaches at Ryerson University, Toronto. With Hoa Nguyen he published 10 issues of the always-hip and controversial journal, Skanky Possum. His book, Poets Beyond the Barricade: Rhetoric, Citizenship, and Dissent (University of Alabama Press), was published last year, and Slow Poetry in America (Cuneiform) is forthcoming in winter 2014. His poems, reviews, and essays have appeared in the Best American Poetry 2002, Bookslut, Chicago Review, Jacket, New American Writing, and more.

Poet and interdisciplinary adventurer Mari-Lou Rowley [see her "12 or 20 questions" here] has encountered a timber wolf, come between a black bear and her cub, interviewed an Italian astronaut, found over 44 four-leaf clovers, and written nine collections of poetry. Her recent book, Unus Mundus (Anvil Press 2013) was awarded second prize in the John V. Hicks Long Manuscript Award. Suicide Psalms, also published by Anvil in 2008, was shortlisted for a Sask Book Award. Her work has appeared internationally in literary, arts and science-related journals including the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics (US) and Aesthetica Magazine’s (UK) Creative Works Competition (finalist 2011). She was one of 20 invited participants in Creative Writing in Mathematics and Science at the Banff International Research Station in 2010.She recently received a Joseph Armand Bombardier Doctoral Award to pursue n interdisciplinary PhD at the University of Saskatchewan in new media, neuroplasticity and empathy.

above/ground press participates in the fisher small press fair at university of toronto, september 7, 2013

Fisher Small Press Fair

To celebrate the small and fine press publishers whose work is represented in the current exhibition A Death Greatly Exaggerated (including above/ground press), the Fisher Library is holding its first-ever small press fair. We're extending the exhibition for an extra week into September and holding the fair on the first Saturday of the month.

Featuring many of the publishers represented in the exhibition, the fair will provide visitors the opportunity to meet these talented and dedicated publishers, chat with them about their work, and to purchase their books and items. It will be a special event that you won't want to miss!

Confirmed publishers include: Coach House Press, Porcupine's Quill, Ewa Zebrowski, George A. Walker, Shanty Bay Press, Alan Stein/Church Street Press, above/ground, Greyweather's Press, Thee Hellbox Press, John Grande's Go If Press, Imago Press, Thomas Dannenberg, Pas de Chance, Lindsay Zier-Vogel's Puddle Press, as well as above/ground press and Chaudiere Books. Check this link for more information, and updates on more publishers as we confirm their participation.

Saturday September 7, 2013
10 am-5 pm
Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, 120 St. George St. (corner of St. George and Harbord)

new from above/ground press: Seedpod, Microfiche, by Gary Barwin

Seedpod, Microfiche
Gary Barwin
$4

a grass blade, a truck
a small son
a constellation

evolution is an oblong song
the fishes whisper

seedpod, microfiche of twilight
a dewdrop observed, a cobweb
a weed-wrapped tongue or treetop

bulrush, an art song
consciousness
a fossil 8-track of the city

there is, my love,
a stethoscope whose end
is nowhere
whose earpieces
are everywhere

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

Gary Barwin is a writer, composer, multimedia artist, and the author of 15 books of poetry and fiction. His books include Franzlations (with Craig Conley and Hugh Thomas; New Star), The Obvious Flap (with Gregory Betts; BookThug), The Porcupinity of the Stars (Coach House). He is winner of the 2013 City of Hamilton Arts Award (Writing), the Hamilton Poetry Book of the Year 2011, and co-winner of 2011 Harbourfront Poetry NOW competition, the 2010 bpNichol chapbook award, and the KM Hunter Artist Award. Barwin’s work has been published and performed in Canada and internationally. He received a PhD in music composition from SUNY at Buffalo. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario. garybarwin.com

Seedpod, Microfiche is Barwin’s second above/ground press item after “SYNONYMS FOR FISH,” STANZAS #26 (March, 2001).

Gary Barwin will be launching Seedpod, Microfiche in Ottawa as part of the above/ground press 20th anniversary reading/launch/party on August 23, 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

rob mclennan's chapbook, Trace, is reviewed in Broken Pencil #60

Scott Bryson was good enough to review rob mclennan's chapbook, Trace, (2013) in Broken Pencil #60. Thanks, Scott (although the review doesn't sound altogether complimentary...)! Copies of Trace, are still available, here.

Above/ground press publisher, rob mclennan's, latest collection for his own press is a brief one: six prose poems, all but one of them nine lines in length.
    Trace, (take note of that oddly-placed comma) opens with a paragraph borrowed from Cole Swenen's book of poetry, greensward, a collection that Swensen's publisher (Ugly Duckling Presse) remarks is "sometimes poised precariously on the line between sense and non-sense." The author's verse shares that precarious position on the edge of clarity, and it never completely departs from it. Trace, is thus half an observance of nimble wordplay and half an exercise in struggling to locate meaning.
    Reaching a state of understanding with mclennan's text is all the more difficult due to his purposeful overuse and misuse of commas -- it's a model he's employed previously. A particularly obtuse sample from "[dactyls, syllable, your bluesky dress]" reads: "Transmitted, boxwood. Weak, in this noise. Hand-painted ethics, sign."
    It's at least clear that the majority of this chapbook describes tidbits from the history of Ottawa, but after several read-throughs and a fair amount of internet research, it's obvious that complete comprehension will be elusive for anyone who isn't intimately familiar with the nation's capital. One gets the sense that was mclennan's intent, so it's a success in that respect.

some author activity: Ackerson-Kiely, Poe, Smith, Earl, Wilkinson

Paige Ackerson-Kiely is on the "23 People Who Will Make You Care About Poetry in 2013" list over at Flavorwire (and keep an eye out for her next Ottawa reading: October 21 at The Carleton Tavern as part of The Factory Reading Series, alongside Kate Greenstreet and D.J. Dolack); Deborah Poe and Jessica Smith each have short essays as part of the "Women Looking at Vispo" section of The Volta, guest-edited by Nico Vassilakis; Amanda Earl is interviewed for an article on Bywords.ca for Jam Jar Words; and Joshua Marie Wilkinson has two short films posted up at Omniverse, the blog of Omnidawn.

"poem" broadside #320: let us make, by Pearl Pirie

myths of ourselves instead of the usual
fools. let's see those teeth

of bluegrass blade. each one is a particular.
it will not return to this light.

we can pour every love on this grass,
each sensation, funk, love, and ache.

they are only things to walk among, attached
as shadows. as outcomes of conditions.

let us not karate each other awake
with questions but marvel, us, us.

let us make
by Pearl Pirie
above/ground press broadside #320

Pearl Pirie tweets, photographs, poems and verbs about Ottawa, the luckiest town for literature in just about anywhere. She has poems in a number of chapbooks and in 2 collections, Thirsts (Snare/ Invisible Publishing) and been shed bore (Chaudiere Books). She has been coordinating the Tree Seed Workshop Series for the Tree Reading Series since 2009. She makes mini chapbooks with her micro press phafours. (www.pearlpirie.com/phafours) She has a few more books that will soon be weaned and will be looking for a good home where they will be fed and watered and taken for long walks.

Abby Paige's chapbook, Other Brief Discourses, is reviewed in Broken Pencil #60

Scott Bryson was good enough to review Abby Paige's chapbook, Other Brief Discourses (2013) in Broken Pencil #60. Thanks, Scott! Copies of Other Brief Discourses are still available, here.

Never again, need you ask: "What would explorer Samuel de Champlain think of his New France, 400 years after he established its first settlements?" Other Brief Discourses chronicles Champlain's less-than-triumphant return to Quebec in the 21st century (laws of space and time suspented), as "translated" and rendered poetic verse by writer and stage performer Abby Paige.
    The past-meets-present premise, while not novel, is a challenging perspective to attempt in a book of poetry -- for that, Paige deserves admiration. There are times, though, when she wavers in her presentation of the journey's finer details, leaving Champlain's comprehension of the present day seeming markedly uneven. In early verses, as he arrives in Montreal, Champlain appears to possess preexisting knowledge of bus stations, billboards, big box stores and baggage carousels; a lack of wonder is evident. In a later poem ("VII. The Metro"), seemingly astonished, the only words Champlain can find to describe a subway train are: "a snake with eyes alight" -- finally, the sort of viewpoint you'd expect from a time-traveling tourist. Though the focus in Other Brief Discourses is on Champlain's transplantation in our present, the most imrpessive poems in Paige's collection find Champlain in his own era, lost in reverie, or caught up in dreams about the life he left behind (from "XVIII. A dream"): "We are fishing in the Algonquin fashion / with spears. I am the spear piercing / the flesh of the rainbow trout. I am the trout / whose flesh is hauled aboard."
    Also intriguing, here, is Paige's insertion of herself into these poems as Champlain's street-wise guide. Through the explorer's accounts of their interactions, we get what feels like an inside look at Paige's day-to-day life and her opinion of the city she lives in. At times, hers seems like the more interesting tale.

above/ground press TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY reading and launch: Reid, Barwin, Reed, O’Connor + McCann

above/ground press twentieth anniversary reading and launch
readings and new titles by Monty Reid, Gary Barwin, Marthe Reed, Wanda O’Connor + Marcus McCann

Friday, August 23, 2013
The Mercury Lounge, Lounge Level (second floor)
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
$8 cover / includes the new issue of The Peter F Yacht Club

Monty Reid (Ottawa ON) ~ Moan Coach
Gary Barwin (Hamilton ON) ~ Seedpod, Microfiche
Marthe Reed (Syracuse NY) ~ After Swann
Wanda O’Connor (Montreal QC) ~ damascene road passaggio, selections
Marcus McCann (Toronto ON) ~ Labradoodle: An Essay on David McGimpsey

The event will also be the launch for the limited-edition chapbook I simply began: above/ground press at 20 [an interview with rob mclennan]. Conducted by Cameron Anstee, the interview chapbook will be producedby his Apt. 9 Press.

Author bios:

Monty Reid is an Ottawa writer. His most recent full-length collections are Disappointment Island (Chaudiere) and The Luskville Reductions (Brick). Recently he has published chapbooks with various small presses, including above/ground, Apt. 9, Gaspereau, corrupt, red ceilings, and many others. His new mistranslation of Nicolas Guillen’s El Gran Zoo is forthcoming from BuschekBooks. He currently works as Managing Editor of Arc Poetry Magazine and plays guitar and mandolin in the band Call Me Katie.

He will be launching the chapbook Moan Coach (2013), his fourth above/ground press chapbook after Six Songs for the Mammoth Steppe (2000), cuba A book (2005) and In the Garden (sept series) (2011).

Gary Barwin is a writer, composer, multimedia artist, and the author of 15 books of poetry and fiction. His books include Franzlations (with Craig Conley and Hugh Thomas; New Star), The Obvious Flap (with Gregory Betts; BookThug), The Porcupinity of the Stars (Coach House). He is winner of the 2013 City of Hamilton Arts Award (Writing), the Hamilton Poetry Book of the Year 2011, and co-winner of 2011 Harbourfront Poetry NOW competition, the 2010 bpNichol chapbook award, and the KM Hunter Artist Award. Barwin’s work has been published and performed in Canada and internationally. He received a PhD in music composition from SUNY at Buffalo. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario. garybarwin.com

He will be launching the chapbook Seedpod, Microfiche (2013), his second above/ground press item after “SYNONYMS FOR FISH,” STANZAS #26 (March, 2001).

Marthe Reed is the author of three books: (em)bodied bliss (Moria Books 2013), Gaze (Black Radish Books 2010) and Tender Box, A Wunderkammer (Lavender Ink 2007). A fourth book, Pleth, a collaboration with j/j hastain, will appear in September 2013 from Unlikely Books; a fifth will be published by Lavender Ink (2014). She has also published four chapbooks as part of the Dusie Kollektiv. Her poetry has appeared in New American Writing, Golden Handcuffs Review, New Orleans Review, HOW2, MiPOesias, Fairy Tale Review, Exquisite Corpse, BlazeVOX, and The Offending Adam, among others. Her manuscript, an earth of sweetness dances in the vein, was a finalist in Ahsahta Press’ 2006 Sawtooth Poetry Contest; her manuscript Nights Reading was a finalist for the Elizabeth P. Braddock Prize (Coconut Books). An essay on Claudia Rankine’s The Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue appears in American Letters and Commentary.

She will be launching the chapbook After Swann (2013).

Wanda O’Connor is a graduate of Concordia’s Creative Writing and Classics programs, and most recently completed an MA in Literature with a considerable focus on Robin Blaser’s stunning carmen perpetuum. damascene road passaggio, selections is an excursus through transitions of semi-tones and silence, possessing no address nor addressee nor gaze nor superior flattery. Wanda is currently at work on a long poem manuscript and is an editor at Lemon Hound.

She will be launching the chapbook damascene road passaggio, selections (2013).

Marcus McCann is the author of two previous above/ground titles: Heteroskeptical (2007) and Town in a Long Day of Leaving (2010). Labradoodle is his ninth chapbook. He is a winner of the John Newlove Award and the EJ Pratt Medal for poetry. His two trade collections Soft Where (2009, Chaudiere Books) and The Hard Return (2012, Insomniac) can be found at Glad Day, a bookshop he co-owns with some 20 queer radicals in Toronto. marcusmccann.com

He will be launching the chapbook Labradoodle (2013), his third above/ground press chapbook after Heteroskeptical (2007) and Town in a long day of leaving (2010).