This is the seventh in a series of short essays/reminiscences by a variety of authors and friends of the press to help mark the quarter century mark of above/ground. See links to the whole series here.
The Spirit Duplicator
by Erín Moure on the occasion of the 25th
anniversary of above /ground...
16 February 2018
Twenty-five
years later, what do I remember most about the beginnings of above/ground? The incessant
mailings. They’d drive you nuts. The spill of paper from hand-scrawled envelopes,
more often than not unsolicited, the variable quality of the poetry, the
unaesthetic production of the DIY school, in which is embedded the history of
the photocopy and the murmur-click and sweet solvent scent of the
once-ubiquitous “ditto machine,” the spirit duplicator. rob mclennan, with
above/ground, pursued a future that the advent of the photocopy had buried as
history, and he did it with photocopies, above ground and unburied: our spirit
duplicator.
There was
always something in the envelope that intrigued. That caught eye and mind. And you
felt rob’s generosity in giving writers the courage of a publication—while
seeing their potential to go further in the future. Their next chapbook would
surprise. Their books would appear—more surprises.
As rob
mclennan persisted, the circle grew. More submissions, more readers. Readers
further away, across borders, across and through languages in English
translation. Where most other people would lose energy and desist, rob has
continued, irrepressibly: a spirit duplicator.
The works
may be humble in fabrication, but there is a presence and excitement each time
the envelope comes, and intrigue at how works are put in conversation, poets
are put in conversation. More energy. Borders fall. We want this conversation.
Unlike a
creative writing school that tells poets where they fall short, in order to
haul them upward, rob mclennan just invites, and offers, and accepts, and does.
Instead of spending his time filling endless paper to apply for grants and bend
to the priorities of neoliberal institutions and their politics, rob has just
solicited, published, created a space for conversation and work not restrained
by agencies, schools, or settled perimeters. Instead of spending disposable
income (when he had any) on himself, he spent it on mailing us poetry. You
never saw rob driving a car, wearing a snappy suit, showing off photos of his
vacation in Umbria or at the MOMA. You saw him on foot, at local festivals
holding out envelopes of above/ground chapbooks. You saw him at small press
fairs, at readings and events, in Ottawa primarily but also in Toronto or
Edmonton, in a bar or a coffee shop, carrying above/ground chapbooks,
broadsheets, pulling you some new publication out of his bag. He wrote and
writes a lot of books of poetry of his own; yet in no way does he wish to take
up all the space. Rather, he make space for others, makes the space of poetry
bigger: a spirit duplicator.
Against all
the odds, and oddities, it seems to be working. When institutions constrain us
(and poets who want to be institutions), schools trade on mainstream power, and
magazines are under the thumb of arts councils to have their spreadsheets show
the right numbers, above/ground keeps publishing. And keeps getting better, its
works more urgent, more diverse and inclusive, more queer, more embodied in
difference and étrangéité. rob doesn’t
run out of energy. He makes us all a space of poetry that nourishes itself, us,
him, and you others. The chapbooks cheer me up every time they arrive. A spirit
duplicator!
Erín Moure is a poet and translator of poetry
based in Montreal and Kelowna. In Canada, the USA, and
the UK, she has published 17 books of poetry, a coauthored book of poetry, a
volume of essays, a book of short articles on translation, a poetics, a memoir,
various chapbooks and broadsheets, and she is translator or co-translator of 17
books of poetry and two of creative non fiction (biopoetics) (and some
chapbooks!) from French, Spanish, Galician and Portuguese.
Moure has two above/ground press chapbooks,
including panpiped panacea панацея, ten poems by Yuri Izdryk, translated from the Ukrainian by Roman Ivashkiv and Erín Moure (2016) and from the uplands,
The Book of the Courel by Uxío Novoneyra, translated by Erín Moure, with an
introduction by Antón Lopo (forthcoming, spring 2018).
