Tuesday, January 31, 2017

“poem” broadside #341 : “The Sky in Balvanera” by Sarah Moses



From a rectangle cut out of the sky in Balvanera falls food instead of rain. On Tuesdays, it’s lemon rinds and orange peels. There can be so many, falling all day long, that the sky turns yellow and orange and the air smells like freshly squeezed juice. Afterward, the fruit covers the ground. It begins to rot, and a sickeningly sweet smell arises from the sticky pulp. On Fridays, egg shells and chicken bones and the left-over fat from some steaks drop down from above. The trees whip in the wind, the clouds block out the sun, and the animal remains cannot be seen against the dark sky. They are heard when they land on the ground: the shells crack into tiny pieces and the fat absorbs the falling bones. Eventually, the worms and slugs find homes in the parts of other animals. Lit cigarettes also fall from the sky, though this happens every day of the week. Their lights blink and then go out when they reach the earth. The paper slowly disintegrates but the filters never break apart; they take on the brown colour of the soil and pile up in small mounds that soon become big mounds.

The Sky in Balvanera
by Sarah Moses
January 2017
above/ground press broadside #341

Sarah Moses is a Canadian writer and translator who divides her time between Toronto and Buenos Aires. Her translations and interviews have appeared in Brick and Asymptote, and her poems in the chapbooks as they say (Socios Fundadores, Buenos Aires, 2016) and Those problems (Proper Tales Press, Cobourg, 2016).

Monday, January 30, 2017

new from above/ground press: ASTRAL PROJECTION, by Kyle Flemmer

ASTRAL PROJECTION
Kyle Flemmer
$5



published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2017
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Kyle Flemmer
is an author, editor, and publisher from Calgary, Canada. Kyle founded The Blasted Tree Publishing Company in 2014, a small press and community of emerging Canadian artists. He graduated from Concordia University in Montreal with a double-major in Western Society & Culture and Creative Writing. Kyle is passionate about social satire, philosophy, and science, and enjoys writing poetry, short stories, and critical essays. His work has been published by NewPoetry, no press, Soliloquies, Gadfly, The Bullcalf Review, word and colour, Penteract Press, and Spacecraft Press, among others.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com


Friday, January 27, 2017

new from above/ground press: marginal prints, by philip miletic

marginal prints
philip miletic
$5


I thought of the passage
I thought of the passage in relation to you
I thought of the passage in relation to me
I thought of the passage and our shared conversation
I thought of the passage and our shared sense of ecstasy

it’s not all I remembered from the book;
there were my own discoveries,
and I shared those with you,
orally inscribing annotations for you
as you did for me

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2017
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy


marginal prints was produced with five different covers, all of which were designed by the author.

philip miletic is the author of the chapbooks mother2earth and And The Birds Sing and the visual poetry pamphlet Silver. He is the co-author with Craig Dodman of world 1-1. His poetry and fiction have appears in The Danforth Review, Poetry is Dead, Otoliths, (Parenthetical), and elsewhere. He lives in Kitchener, ON.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Monday, January 23, 2017

rob mclennan interviews Geoffrey Young for Queen Mob's Teahouse

rob mclennan interviews Geoffrey Young over at Queen Mob's Teahouse on his multiple decades of writing and publishing, as well as on Young's latest, THIRTY-THREE, newly published by above/ground press.

Monday, January 16, 2017

new from above/ground press: THIRTY-THREE, by Geoffrey Young

THIRTY-THREE
Geoffrey Young
$5

THE BURIAL

The quotidian intoxication of my style
Favors gesture over statement
Mixed diction over simplicity, shifting tone over
Monochrome.  Dream bits, bare fact, and touches

Of the bizarre enliven my style as it opens
To whimsy’s breeze and fury’s despair,
Landing the first blow.  Delicate as skin
When touched, it remains still as a cactus garden

In the sun.  Daring banality with banality
My style closes the space between “scrupulously
Intelligent” and “incandescently alert” by boiling
The daily grind.  Quick to separate “replete with

Artifice” from “hopelessly fake,” it is ardent
On behalf of words that prepare tradition for the grave.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2017
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy


Before settling in Great Barrington, Massachusetts in 1982, Geoffrey Young spent student years in Santa Barbara (UCSB), and Albuquerque (UNM), then lived for two years in Paris (a Fulbright year followed by a six-month stint working for La Galerie Sonnabend). From 1975-1982 he lived in Berkeley (two sons born). His small press, The Figures (1975-2005), founded in Berkeley, published more than 135 books of poetry, art writing, and fiction.

He has directed the Geoffrey Young Gallery for the last 24 years, as well as written catalog essays for a dozen artists.

His own recent books include Click Here to Forget, Isolate Flecks, 2016; All the Anarchy I Want, Lonely Woman, 2013; Dumbstruck, Yawning Abyss, 2013, with paintings by Daniel Heidkamp; and Get On Your Pony & Ride, Non-Fiction, 2012, with paintings by Chie Fueki.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Thursday, January 12, 2017

new from above/ground press: random_lines = random.choice, by Jason Christie (ITEM #800!

random_lines = random.choice
Jason Christie
$4

# encumbrance at dawn

gravel with snow on top.

bridge - bridge - i want
language language language.

Image expressing
Through amber Snow

bridge - abridge - i want
music to introduce a baby

With a story about a
simple path, a relationship

to objects, friends huddled
close, closing soon a season
for music, you let it burn through.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
as above/ground press' 800th publication
January 2017
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy


Jason Christie
lives in Ottawa with his wife, toddler and new baby. He is the author of Canada Post (Snare), i ROBOT (Edge/Tesseract), Unknown Actor (Insomniac), and a co-editor of Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry (Mercury). He has four chapbooks from above/ground press, two of which were nominated for the bpNichol Chapbook Award: GOVERNMENT (2013), and Cursed Objects (2014). He is currently writing poetry about objects and exaltation.

This Jason Christie's his fifth chapbook with above/ground press, after 8th Ave 15th St NW. (2004), Government (2013), Cursed Objects (2014) and The Charm (2015).

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Monday, January 9, 2017

new from above/ground press: Series out of Sequence, by Carrie Hunter

Series out of Sequence
Carrie Hunter
$4




Sequence

A real dog can always tell a fake bitch.

The real world is not about happy endings.

Screaming at the top of your lungs for answers and finding them.

Symbols don’t mean anything other than that which you hope that they mean.

I have the exhumation order.

A long hot shower in the good shower.

Bird with a twig in its mouth.

Dog with a stick in its mouth.

She saw us stuck at the threshold.

Dare to be normal.

Two Y chromosomes make nothing.

The question of being concerned and being chased.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2017
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Carrie Hunter
received her MFA/MA in the Poetics program at New College of California, edits the chapbook press, ypolita press, is on the editorial board of Black Radish Books, and co-curated the Hearts Desire Reading Series. Her chapbook Vice/Versa recently came out with Dancing Girl Press, and her full-length collection, The Incompossible, was published in 2011 by Black Radish Books, and another, Orphan Machines, came out in 2015. She lives in San Francisco and teaches ESL.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Friday, January 6, 2017

new from above/ground press: Domestica, by Sarah Swan

Domestica
Sarah Swan
$4


Still Life 4



Here is a pile of too-small shoes:
the previous selves of two little girls. I miss them.
These register as losses.

Here is light arriving whole, sudden –

to illumine such common things:

another brick of butter,
soft enough to be finger-poked all over
by two little girls,

a red and white striped bowl
of snow-white flour.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2017
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Sarah Swan
is from Winnipeg, but currently lives in Yellowknife, NWT. She is a former medic with the Canadian Armed Forces, a homeschooling mom, and a freelance fine arts writer. Her publication credits include the Winnipeg Free Press, Canadian Art, Galleries West, Studio Magazine, and Macleans’ Magazine. At one time, Sarah was also a poet, having published a book of poems titled Rapture Red and Smoke Grey with Turnstone Press in 2001. She is happy, and relieved, to be writing poetry again.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com