new from above/ground press: 25th anniversary poetry broadsides

lovingly curated by rob mclennan / lovingly designed by Christine McNair

In case you might have seen via social media, on Tuesday night we launched the press' silver anniversary broadside series, copies of which we can now offer to the public! (while supplies last, obviously); fourteen single-poem broadsides by a variety of above/ground press authors covering the quarter century of the press' ongoing production!

FOURTEEN FOR TWENTY FIVE
Cameron Anstee
Stephanie Bolster
Stephen Brockwell
Derek Beaulieu
Jason Christie
Amanda Earl
Sharon Harris
Helen Hajnoczky
Hailey Higdon
Sarah Mangold
Gil McElroy
Sandra Ridley
Chris Turnbull
Andy Weaver

"walking the table"

As Christine's colophon reads:

The broadsides were typeset in Futura and Minion by Christine McNair who takes perverse pleasure in the irritation that typeface choice may produce. There are reasons. Not the least of which is that they’re hearty enough to stand up to the photocopying and she tired of weeping at disappearing serifs from prettier typefaces. She embraces the ubiquity. The two typefaces work together in a crooked way that she finds pleasing.

The broadsides were copied onto cardstock by Rytec Printing. The envelopes were individually stamped with gold foil using a Kwikprint.

Each broadside was produced in an edition of 150 copies. The broadsides were collected into 26 lettered sets for the authors and 114 numbered sets for general sale. The remaining 10 copies of each broadside were held for individual sale.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
October 2018
celebrating twenty-five years of above/ground press
note: this item IS NOT part of the above/ground press subscription

$20 / $10 for current above/ground press subscribers

To order, send cheques (add $3 for postage; in US, add $5; outside North America, add $8) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPay button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com.

AND DON'T FORGET THE ABOVE/GROUND PRESS 25TH ANNIVERSARY T-SHIRTS, FINALLY AVAILABLE FOR ORDERING!

above/ground press t-shirts!

I finally had more t-shirts made, gloriously and brilliantly produced by Ottawa's own Troublemaker Print, and designed by Christine McNair.

I have various sizes! send me an email at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com to see what is currently available.

above/ground press author Gil McElroy

$20 each /

above/ground press author Lea Graham

To order, send cheques (add $3 for postage; in US, add $5; outside North America, add $8) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com. 

new from above/ground press: LAOS (Some Julian Days), by Gil McElroy

LAOS (Some Julian Days)
Gil McElroy
$5

It was
unnecessary history noticed,
the kiss of the Ice Age, all
crude & bright. & those
gaunt rooms we left behind, so
numerous & clumsily impressive? Well,
they have doubtful conjunctions now,
don’t they? It’s
‘cause of
the slighting effect of their dishes, &,
of course, our free-range palettes.

All in
all in
the absence
of hence.



[ALSO: the place turned itself inside-out, pointedly
aloof as befits a soap-inscribed sound.]


                    2457652

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
October 2018
celebrating twenty-five years of above/ground press
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Gil McElroy is a poet, visual artist, curator, and visual arts critic. He has published four books of poetry with Talonbooks, a collection of art writing with Gaspereau Press, and a memoir about his father and what it was like growing up a military brat during the height of the Cold War that was also published by Talonbooks. His visual art has been exhibited in galleries across Canada, and he has curated exhibitions for numerous art galleries.

He’s also published numerous chapbooks, and in 2013, was co-winner of the bpNichol Chapbook Award for The Merton Lake Propers published by Baseline Press in London, Ontario.

He currently lives in Colborne.

Gil McElroy is the author of six previous above/ground press chapbooks, including “Echolocations” (½ of STANZAS #5, April 1995), Some Julian Days (1999), “Meteor Showers” (STANZAS #31, 2002), (The Work of Art) In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (2005), Twentieth (2013) and The Doxologies (2014). His Some Julian Days is scheduled for a reissue in 2019 as a “Twentieth Anniversary Edition.”

[McElroy launches this chapbook in Ottawa as part of the above/ground press 25th anniversary broadside launch event with Sarah Mangold and Sandra Ridley on Tuesday, October 30, 2018 as part of the ottawa international writers festival]

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: Mavreas, Tucker, Townsend + Dennis,

Billy Mavreas is discussed briefly by Al Filreis over at Jacket2; Aaron Tucker is interviewed over at Train : a poetry journal; Jamie Townsend has a new poem up in the Tuesday poem series; and Michael Dennis and Kirsty Jackson are interviewed on their art collection.

The Factory Reading Series: Emily Izsak chapbook launch w Sarah Kabamba + Sarah MacDonell

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

The Factory Reading Series
above/ground press chapbook launch

for London, Ontario poet Emily Izsak
launching Twenty-Five

with special guest-readers:
Sarah Kabamba
+
Sarah MacDonell

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Thursday, November 1, 2018;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs), Ottawa

author biographies:

Emily Izsak is the author of Whistle Stops: A Locomotive Serial Poem (Signature Editions, 2017) and Stickup (shuffaloff/Eternal Network, 2015). Her work has been published in Arc Poetry Magazine, The Puritan, House Organ, Cough, CV2, The Doris, and The Hart House Review. In 2014 she was selected as PEN Canada’s New Voices Award nominee. Emily is currently 25 and living in London, Ontario, but all of that could change at any moment.

We are surrounded by stories and poetry, Sarah Kabamba just wants to share some of them with you. She is of Congolese origins, and now lives in Ottawa.

Sarah MacDonell writes, bakes and bikes around Ottawa. She is the digital content editor for Canthius and the communications officer for the Green Party. She was a 2017 Tree Reading Series Hot Ottawa Voice and her poem “Beinn Bhiroach” won an honourable mention for the Diane Brebner Prize. Her first chapbook, The Lithium Body, came out in 2017 with In/Words and her work has been published in literary magazines across Canada and the US.

new from above/ground press: Twenty-Five, by Emily Izsak

Twenty-Five
Emily Izsak
$5

Anyway    the older pony’s

not rhetorical

she’s

       part-time

Beside groin’s    addendum

the crowns and plaster

of centrist teeth      loyal

to the trope

this immanent shortstop

bloated in the noisiest

most thorny part

shares ownership

with gluten’s co-star

the quarter spectre

who says

Do it

Without wanting

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
October 2018
celebrating twenty-five years of above/ground press
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
 
Emily Izsak is the author of Whistle Stops: A Locomotive Serial Poem (Signature Editions, 2017) and Stickup (shuffaloff/Eternal Network, 2015). Her work has been published in Arc Poetry Magazine, The Puritan, House Organ, Cough, CV2, The Doris, and The Hart House Review. In 2014 she was selected as PEN Canada’s New Voices Award nominee. Emily is currently 25 and living in London, Ontario, but all of that could change at any moment.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

above/ground press 25th anniversary essay: Sacha Archer

This is the thirty-fourth 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.

25^th words

When I think of above/ground press it is not first and foremost the publications which come to mind, but rob himself. I have only met rob once in person, but, connected to him via social media and occasional emails, and of course through the above/ground publications themselves, an impression is shaped of this individual who is so devoted to the Canadian small press community.

While I myself am rather isolated in my (writing) life, and admittedly find it fairly difficult to make connections with the enviable ease of some others, rob’s unmistakable generosity is a point of optimism, I would think, to a great many writers who might otherwise never encounter each other’s work. It is this broadness of consideration which one finds in the non-stop flow of publications from across Canada and beyond that leads me back, every time I receive a stack of chapbooks, to imagining rob reading the solicited and unsolicited manuscripts that find their way to him. When I picture rob reading, I come to understand the value of an attitude (and I might be off the mark here, but I don’t think so) situated somewhere between an intense seriousness (after all, how could such a project as above/ground have continued without serious devotion?) and a casual faith in the potential of the writers and texts he encounters.

The publications are not made to be beautiful objects. They’re not meant to be. One reads in the mostly homogenous design of simple stapled booklet a priority: text in hand. Those who submit a manuscript to above/ground know exactly what they’re getting into in terms of production/result. Of course, what writers consistently like is—circulation. Isn’t it nice that somebody, and a few more, will read your work? But of course, we all know, it doesn’t end there. rob is always reaching out with opportunities, solicitations, interviews, mags… kind words and optimism (in succinct emails of one to two sentences that never lack in presence and the open ear). All that is the energy of one who knows how to embrace. Thank you rob, for that embrace which is above/ground—a social embrace which does not reveal a community, but creates it.

Sacha Archer is a writer that works in numerous mediums as well as being the editor of Simulacrum Press (simulacrumpress.ca). His work has been published internationally. Archer has two full-length collections of poetry, Detour (gradient books, 2017) and Zoning Cycle (Simulacrum Press, 2017), as well as a number of chapbooks, the most recent being TSK oomph (Inspiritus Press, 2018) and Contemporary Meat (The Blasted Tree, 2018). His visual poetry has been exhibited in the USA, Italy, and Canada. Some of that work, among other things, can be found on his website, sachaarcher.wordpress.com. Archer lives in Burlington, Ontario.

Sacha Archer is the author of two above/ground press chapbooks, including upROUTE : The Language of Plates (2017) and the forthcoming Autopsy Report (2018).

new from above/ground press: BIRDS I RECALL, by Sarah Mangold

BIRDS I RECALL
Sarah Mangold
$5

In the Department of Birds we welcome the possible. Accuracy is more-or-less proposition. Low down and close up. An architect in need of work. During the next five years Mrs. Morrill painted African landscapes never seen. To create a message for the future. To prepare for her coming tasks.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
October 2018
celebrating twenty-five years of above/ground press
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Sarah Mangold is the author of the poetry collections Household Mechanics (New Issues, selected by C. D. Wright), Electrical Theories of Femininity (Black Radish Books) and Giraffes of Devotion (Kore), as well as many chapbooks. She is the recipient of fellowships and supported residencies from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Willapa Bay AiR and Artist Trust. She founded and edited Bird Dog: a journal of innovative writing and art, which featured longer poems and emerging women poets. She lives and works in Seattle.

This is Mangold’s fourth above/ground press chapbook, after Cupcake Royale (2012), Parlor (2012) and A Copyist, an Astronomer, and a Calendar Expert (2016).

[Mangold launches this chapbook in Ottawa as part of the above/ground press 25th anniversary broadside launch event with Gil McElroy and Sandra Ridley on Tuesday, October 30, 2018 as part of the ottawa international writers festival]

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

above/ground press 25th anniversary essay: Monty Reid

This is the thirty-third 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 Canvas Bag Survives

When I first moved to Ottawa from Alberta in 1999, two poets went out of their way to welcome me. One, Arc co-founder Chris Levenson, has since moved himself, out to the west coast.  The other was rob mclennan. In fact, the day after I got into town, we read together at a downtown bookstore at an event that had been planned much earlier. Or did he host? I don’t remember. What I do remember is leaving the bookstore with a small envelope full of recent chapbooks he’d produced. 

They weren’t hard to carry. Lightweight and simply-produced, they felt flimsy in my hand. But they were not flimsy, they were loaded. I had heard of above/ground but this was the first I’d actually seen of it. I had read some of the poets, but many of them were new to me. There was concrete work, mashed-up sonnets and more traditional sentence-based material. I loved some of them and didn’t love others, but was knocked out by the variety and the sheer quantity of the productions.

It hasn’t stopped. The chapbooks keep coming, fifty a year sometimes. And this in addition to rob’s other projects, his little magazines, his recently-sequestered Chaudiere Books, his extensive blog, his workshops, his own non-stop publications, his support for other poetry organizations such as the Tree Reading Series and VerseFest, and his now-substantial family commitments. 

Like other chapbook publishers, above/ground plays an important role in develping new poets and giving more-established poets a new audience as well as a chance to test-drive new, sometimes different material. But I can’t think of any other chapbook publisher with the range and number of titles (even Fred Cogswell’s amazing Fiddlehead Books produced only 307 titles, albeit not all were chapbooks), with the long-term consistency (25 years and counting is a heck of a run), with the editorial generosity and as a result, an increasingly pivotal role for many writers, particularly those with an experimental bent.

My relation with above/ground is both as enabled and enabler. The press has published four of my chapbooks and a fifth is in the works. rob has arranged readings, made introductions, and gotten my work out into the world. As he has done for hundreds of others. One of my favorite images is rob on his bike in mid-winter, a black toque on his head and his long coat flapping, a canvas bag full of above/ground envelopes slung over his shoulder, heading out in the snow to hand-deliver the latest chapbooks to subscribers around the city. The bike, sadly, got stolen and trashed. The canvas bag survives.

But there were also times when I supplied paper and envelopes for the chapbooks, and heated up the copiers at the Museum of Nature running off hundreds of pages of the latest productions. I moved boxes, bought pizza, and tried to get rob to eat his vegetables. They were good times. They were the kind of things that friends did together, and that’s how I think of above/ground most often – as a friend.

Monty Reid was born in Saskatchewan, lived for many years in Alberta, and moved to the Ottawa area in 1999 to work at the Canadian Museum of Nature. His books include Karst Means Stone (NeWest), Crawlspace (Anansi), The Alternate Guide (rdc) and Garden (Chaudiere) – his most recent collection is 2016’s Meditatio Placentae (Brick). His chapbooks have appeared from many small publishers in Canada and abroad, including four from above/ground. A new chapbook, nipple variations, is forthcoming from post ghost press. A three-time GG nominee, he was Arc Poetry Magazine’s Managing Editor for many years and is currently the Director of VerseFest, Ottawa’s international poetry festival.

Monty Reid is the author of four above/ground press chapbooks, including Six Songs for the Mammoth Steppe (2000), cuba A book (2005), In the Garden (sept series) (2011) and Moan Coach (2013). A fifth is forthcoming.