Wednesday, November 28, 2018

above/ground press 25th anniversary essay: Kyle Flemmer


This is the thirty-fifth 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.

I only met rob mclennan in person recently, but that is not to say we haven’t interacted since being put in touch by a mutual friend. Our relationship has been characterized by a steady exchange of emails, publications, and social media love. Never have I encountered a man with so many irons in the fire, nor someone so willing to collaborate or spread the good word. That he has been behind above/ground for a quarter century is both humbling and makes total sense. He gives off a contagiously conspiratorial, even brotherly, vibe, even in emails.

When rob mailed author copies of the first chapbook above/ground published on my behalf, he included dozens and dozens of chapbooks by a wildly diverse range of authors. Unpacking that box, I knew instinctively the unspeakable amount of work and care that must go into the press, the dedication and love which this trove of chapbooks represented.

Since then, rob has involved me in at least a half dozen other initiatives, some with above/ground, some not, including interviews, email blasts, anthologies, another chapbook, and more. He recommends calls for submission, asks me to consider and explain my projects in ways I hadn’t thought of yet, to review and engage with writing beyond my usual scope, sharpening me to the kind of discourse expected of poets and publishers. He shines a light on work which might otherwise be ignored, overlooked, or underserved, championing emerging writers in a way few publishers can claim, all while continuing to sustain established writers.

Incidentally, the magazine I edit is also celebrating its twenty fifth year in operation, so I think I know a little something about what rob has gone through to make above/ground so enduring … just kidding, I’ve only been a literary type for a few short years and am continually floored by the herculean feats of publishing he seems capable of performing with ease. While I make no claims to a full understanding of the history of the press, the couple of years I have been receiving above/ground publications have been about as deep an immersion in the literary currents of our time as I ever expect to find in an indie press.

Finally, I got to meet rob the weekend of the Meet the Presses Indie Literary Market in Toronto this November. Though I’ve tabled at several small press and zines fairs before, this was my first time traveling for a market, and unlike other markets in this vein, MtP has a distinct ‘family reunion’ vibe about it. Without surprise you will learn that rob was among both the welcoming and farewell gatherings, so I was able to get to know him a bit over the weekend, but the image I took away of the man behind above/ground was of him at the market, stationed across the aisle and a couple spots down from me, table loaded with a rainbow sea of chapbooks, him beaming and waving and in his element, and I could feel the contagious enthusiasm radiating off him all day.




Kyle Flemmer founded The Blasted Tree Publishing Company in 2014 as an outlet for his writing and to build a community of emerging Canadian artists. He is currently the Managing Editor of filling Station magazine, were he served as Associate Poetry Editor for two years. Kyle graduated from Concordia University with a double-major in Western Society & Culture and Creative Writing, where his poem White Dwarfs was a finalist for the 2016 Irving Layton Poetry Award. Kyle has released several recent poetry chapbooks, including Coronagraphic (2018) and ASTRAL PROJECTION (2017) from above/ground press, and Lunar Flag Assembly Kit (2017) from no press.

Monday, November 26, 2018

The Peter F. Yacht Club regatta/reading/christmas party!

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan;

The Peter F. Yacht Club annual regatta/christmas party/reading

at The Carleton Tavern (upstairs)
233 Armstrong Avenue (at Parkdale Market)
Friday, December 28, 2017
doors 7pm, reading 7:30pm


with readings from yacht club regulars and irregulars alike, including Amanda Earl, Chris Johnson, Christine McNair, Frances Boyle, natalie hanna, Pearl Pirie and rob mclennan (and most likely some others).

Special Guest: Laurie Fuhr, launching her debut full-length collection!

readings! joyousness! baked goods!

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

The Factory Reading Series presents: a workshop chapbook launch,

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

The Factory Reading Series
launching a chapbook anthology (produced through above/ground press)
featuring participants from rob mclennan's most recent poetry workshop:

featuring readings by:

Marie-Andree Auclair
allison calvern
Allie Duff
Laurence Gillieson
Janna Klostermann
Leah MacLean-Evans
Sneha Madhavan-Reese
+ Billie Moss
lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, December 7, 2018;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)


This is the third “rob mclennan poetry workshop” chapbook, after cycle 7 (April 25, 2003), with poems by Lindsey Barr, Robynn Collins, Brendan Hodgson, James Irwin, Soraya Peerbaye, LM Rochefort, Suzanna Showler and Mary Trafford; and assignment: zero (December 2015) with poems by Frances Boyle, Amanda Earl, Claire Farley, Rosemarie Krausz, Barbara Myers and Dawn Steiner.

For information on further workshops, check out the link at: http://robmclennanauthor.blogspot.com/

author biographies:

Marie-Andree Auclair’s poems have appeared in a variety of print and online publications in Canada, the United States, Ireland and in the United Kingdom. Her chapbook, Contrails was released by In/Words Magazine and Press/Ottawa. She lives in Ottawa, Canada.

allison calvern
lives in Vanier on a street sandwiched between two cemeteries—dead centre of town. She writes a few poems while collaborating on a graphic novel with local artist, Benjamin Comeau.

Allie Duff is originally from St. John’s, NL and now lives in Ottawa, ON. Allie writes poems, performs stand-up comedy, and occasionally plays electric guitar. She is a proud co-founder of Spoken Word St. John’s, an organization that hosts monthly poetry open mics.

Laurence Gillieson began writing in high school as a way to deal with the growing realization that math is stupid. She honed her skills at the University of Ottawa (with a BA in English Literature), followed by Algonquin College (Print Journalism, followed shortly after by Dramatic Scriptwriting). Her poetry has been published in Bywords and in a university anthology. She has had a couple of short plays produced at the NAC’s Fourth Stage and on CKCU radio. She currently works part-time at the gift shop of the Ottawa Hospital General Campus. She shares her writing with multiple other interests and hobbies, including reading, cooking, and creating sometimes useful things with yarn.

Janna Klostermann (@jannaKlos) is a feminist writer, recreational performer and PhD student in Carleton’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Her academic and artistic work wrestles with how to respond to suffering, how to be with others in vulnerable moments, and how to tell our own stories in solidarity with others. The chips help.

Leah MacLean-Evans writes poems and stories in Ottawa. Her work has appeared in Canthius, untethered, Qwerty, On Spec Magazine, and elsewhere. She was the 2017 fiction winner of the Blodwyn Memorial Prize and the 2018 winner of the League of Canadian Poets’ National Broadsheet contest. She has an MFA in Writing from the University of Saskatchewan and is the proofreader of Grain. Find her online at macleanevans.ca or @penanddragon.

Sneha Madhavan-Reese is the author of the poetry collection Observing the Moon. Her writing has appeared in publications around the world, including The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2016. She is the 2015 winner of Arc Poetry Magazine’s Diana Brebner Prize and was a finalist for a 2018 National Magazine Award. She lives with her family in Ottawa.

Billie Moss is an educator who lives in Ottawa with her partner, toddler, and cat.

Monday, November 19, 2018

new from above/ground press: Seventeen Summers, by Cole Swensen

Seventeen Summers
Cole Swensen
$5



And Golden Apple Tree, 1903, also lost

in the 1945 fire at Schloss Immendorf, so also now

known only in black and white, and thus the burden of apples

that must have weighed entire skies

have become just as many blind spots,

small exits, erasures out of which we also slip, wondering

about the green beneath, also erased, which seems

nonetheless particularly rich. That light and thus the houses

build vertically in planes
             an economy of climbing
things green after green
             Malcesine on Lake Garda (1913)
(also lost in the fire) in the trees
                is lost in the upper framing

making the small town seem to go on rising

softly breaking other frames, unseen, tithing.

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


cover image: Gustav Klimt and Emilie Flöge on the Jetty in Litzlberg, 1906
cover image credit: Collection Villa Paulick, courtesy Klimt Foundation, Vienna

Cole Swensen (coleswensen.com) is the author of 17 books of poetry, most recently On Walking On (2017), and a volume of critical essays, Noise That Stays Noise (2011). Her work has won the Iowa Poetry Prize, the SF State Poetry Center Book Award, and the National Poetry Series and has been a finalist twice for the LA Times Book Award and once for the National Book Award. A former Guggenheim Fellow, she’s also the translator of over 20 volumes of poetry, prose, and art criticism from French, and has won a PEN USA Award in Literary Translation. She edits the small press La Presse (lapressepoetry.com).

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

Sunday, November 18, 2018

Barry Schwabsky writes on Geoffrey Young for Hyperallergic,

Barry Schwabsky wrote on three Geoffrey Young chapbooks--including his 2017 above/ground press title, THIRTY-THREE (copies of which are still very much available)--as well as about Young's work generally, in a very cool article for Hyperallergic. Thanks so much! You can see the original article here.

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

new from above/ground press: PLANE FLY AT NIGHT (Tuscaloosa Notebook Poems), by MC Hyland

PLANE FLY AT NIGHT
(Tuscaloosa Notebook Poems)        
MC Hyland
$5

IN THE CEMETARY BY THE STADIUM

Rain hit you on purpose
All over your second language

Busted iron archway over
Over a street of bats

Hinge of radiance
Passionate solipsism

Put an apocalypse in the middle
To make light of the room

Taxonomies of rain
Unravel at the shoulder

Cavalry vs. Calvary vs. Calgary

Compulsory nervousness
Would not follow you to Texas

Shaken awake as the car rolled
Razorblade under your tongue

Make a room of light
Going into the ground

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

MC Hyland
is a PhD candidate in English Literature at New York University, and holds MFAs in Poetry and Book Arts from the University of Alabama. From her research, she produces scholarly and poetic texts, artists’ books, and public art projects. She is the founding editor of DoubleCross Press, a poetry micropress, as well as the author of several poetry chapbooks—most recently THE END PART ONE (Magic Helicopter Press 2017) and (with Anna Gurton-Wachter) The Laundry Poem/Five Essays on the Lyric (self-published, 2018)—and the poetry collections Neveragainland (Lowbrow Press 2010) and THE END (Sidebrow, forthcoming 2019).

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

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

The Factory Reading Series pre-small press book fair reading, November 23: Zuchter, Flack, Chisholm, Archer + Pirie,

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

The Factory Reading Series
pre-small press book fair reading
featuring readings by:

Ruth Zuchter (Toronto)
Brian L. Flack (Prince Edward County ON)
Allison Chisholm (Kingston ON)
Sacha Archer (Burlington ON)
+ Pearl Pirie (rural Quebec)
lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, November 23, 2018;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)

[And don’t forget the ottawa small press book fair, held the following day at the Jack Purcell Community Centre]


After working for over a dozen years in the digital media and marketing industry, Ruth Zuchter [pictured] launched her freelance writing and editing career in 2013, and the rest, as “they” say, is history. Ruth was the house copy editor and marketing copywriter for BookThug from 2011 through 2017. In that time, she worked on almost 80 different books, including novels, poetry collections, memoirs, and entre-genre titles. She also worked as an editorial intern for Knopf Canada and Random House Canada in 2013. Her poetry has been published in (parenthetical), Influency: A Poetry Salon, and elsewhere. Ruth holds an M.A. in Sociology from Western University and has completed courses with the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, and the Toronto New School of Writing, exploring poetry and prose writing, narrative and language use, and the practice of copy editing. In her off-hours, you’ll find Ruth plucking away at one of the three novels she has on the go or hiking with her husband and two rescue mutts in the wilds of Toronto. She is launching The Mother Suite, her chapbook with AngelHousePress.

Brian L. Flack is the author of three novels … In Seed Time, With A Sudden & Terrible Clarity, and When Madmen Lead the Blind, and a collection of poems … 36 … Poems. He has contributed literary & social criticism to books, periodicals, and academic journals, and written many reviews for newspapers. For several years, he was the host of a weekly radio programme, “Bookviews”, on Q-107, in Toronto. In another life that he enjoyed for almost 40 years, he was a Professor of English Literature. He lives with the painter Susan Straiton ... by the lake, in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

Allison Chisholm was born in Cobourg and lives in Kingston, Ontario. She played glockenspiel in the Hawaiian-Dream-Pop band SCUB. Her poetry has appeared in The Northern Testicle Review, The Dollhouse (Puddles of Sky Press) and Train: a journal of investigation. Her chapbook, On the Count of One, was published in 2017 (Proper Tales Press). On the Count of None (A Feed Dog Book from Anvil Press) is her first full-length poetry collection. She is the curator of the Museum of Tiny Objects.

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), Contemporary Meat (The Blasted Tree, 2018) and Autopsy Report (above/ground press, 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.

Pearl Pirie writes from rural Quebec. www.pearlpirie.com

Monday, November 12, 2018

new from above/ground press: G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #1

above/ground press debuts a new journal this week: 
G U E S T [a journal of guest editors]

issue #1 is edited by Amanda Earl
 

(issue #2 will be edited by Stuart Ross)

and this first issue features new work by:

Manahil Bandukwala
Ariel Dawn
Allie Duff
Brinda Gulati
j / j hastain
Ren Iwamoto
Margo Lapierre
Dona Mayoora
Ashley Naftule
Dominik Parisien
Fátima Queiroz
Rasiqra Revulva
Sneha Subramanian Kanta
+ Ur-Matter

 
See the link here for author and editor biographies, ordering information and Amanda's introduction!

As you might already know, guest editor Amanda Earl is also the author of six chapbooks through above/ground press, including Eleanor (2007), The Sad Phoenician’s Other Woman (2008), Sex First & Then A Sandwich (2012), A Book of Saints (2015), Lady Lazarus Redux (2017) and The Book of Mark (2018).
 

and don't worry: G U E S T is already included as part of the above/ground press subscription! (there's still time to subscribe for 2019 if you haven't already)

Sunday, November 11, 2018

above/ground press at Meet the Presses and the ottawa small press book fairs!

We know you love book fairs, and we know you love seeing above/ground press titles at book fairs, so why not take the opportunity to do such not once, but twice?

We'll be at Toronto's Meet the Presses event this Saturday, November 17th from noon till 5pm at Trinity-St. Paul's Centre (427 Bloor Street West, Toronto). See the link for further information here.

A week later, we'll be at the ottawa small press book fair, Saturday, November 24 from noon till 5pm at Jack Purcell Community Centre (room 203; 320 Jack Purcell Lane, Ottawa). See the link for further information here.

And both events are completely free to attend! Yahoo!


Friday, November 9, 2018

“poem” broadside #345 : “FALLS” by Claire Farley



What is a year in terms of falling water?
– Muriel Rukeyser


Nothing but lumber
falls dammed & city rezoned
material obstacle
to the flow of cars

For 10,000 years
this sacred pipe
is “river” now
open the viewer to zoom in

40,000 on the grid
I break it down in sections
who opposes & who supports
pavement or asbestos 

buried turbines
on contaminated soil
(preferred hire to stem
the flow Indigenous)

In the 1930s, Rukeyser
wrote hydro & silicosis

    All power is saved, having no end    
                                        
Water celebrates, yielding continually
         sheeted and fast in its overfall

now the green season is 
commerce, condos—
sometimes someone
chooses because

                            falling, the water sheet
    White brilliant function of land’s disease

another by-law
turns land industry
turns Crown municipal
duty to consult

cannot be delegated
to third parties
another resolution
whereas;


FALLS, by Claire Farley
produced in part as a handout during the fifth
Arc Poetry Walk, curated and hosted by rob mclennan, walking around Hintonburg, November 9, 2018
above/ground press broadside #345

Claire Farley is a doctoral candidate in the Department of English at the University of Ottawa and co-founder of Canthius, a feminist literary magazine. Her poetry has been published in several Canadian literary magazines and in 30 under 30: An Anthology of Canadian Millennial Poets. She is the 2016 recipient of the Diana Brebner Prize.

Thursday, November 8, 2018

new from above/ground press: Pyramid Song, by Jamie Townsend

Pyramid Song
Jamie Townsend
$5


    as knowledge builds
    up with physical
    experience to touch
    the earth
is a version
    of time impressed
    on us a totem
    stuffed inside his jock
    Nature is operating
    in ways that, at least
    to our conception,
    are unchanged

    naïve dreams
    we switch bodies
    & I lose my self
    consciousness I
    fall in love with
    the young
    dead shape
    shifters
    who provide
    possibility for
    a future I
    couldn’t possibly
    imagine
    each form
    now bound together in
    the brilliant seclusion of
    a stellar nursery
    another life when
    I fall asleep
    inside the belly of
    a fiberglass creature
    on the outskirts
    of Knokke &
    feel beams lift
    from my chest
    glowing radiant
    as a drag
    on American Spirit
    or inversion of
    Patrick Bateman’s
    psychotic avatar
    split apart by the terror
    of boredom a new pattern
    washed in the refrain
    HOW DEEP
    IS YOUR LOVE
    this well of bonhomie
    to sustain the dream
    & shore up
    barricades against
    doubt & this morning
    on the train
    the apparition of a thin
    furred hand latched
    to the grab bar
    appears assailed
    by the workaday
    my blush ripens
    into fever wherein
    a magic or
    as Genet says deliberate
    predisposition

    might register – I could not
    take lightly the idea
    that people made love
    without me

    I plant a kiss
    there as reminder
    living just enough
    for the city
    though most often
    I doubt
    my real feelings

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


Cover/Design by Nicholas DeBoer

Jamie Townsend is a poet, publisher, and editor living in Oakland, California. They are half-responsible for Elderly, a publishing experiment and persistent hub of ebullience and disgust. They are the author of several chapbooks from Portable Press@YoYo Labs, Little Red Leaves Textile Editions, and Ixnay Press, among others. Their first the full-length collection, Shade (Elis Press), was released in 2015. An essay on the history of the New Narrative magazine Soup was published in The Bigness of Things: New Narrative and Visual Culture (Wolfman Books, 2017). They are currently editing a forthcoming volume of Steve Abbott's writings (Nightboat, 2019).

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

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

new from above/ground press: Autopsy Report, by Sacha Archer

Autopsy Report
Sacha Archer
$5


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


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.

This is Archer’s second above/ground press chapbook, after upROUTE : The Language of Plates (2017).

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

Sunday, November 4, 2018

rob mclennan on old-school chapbook-making

Stephen Brockwell's latest chapbook in-progress
I wrote this short piece recently for the Invisible Publishing blog on how I produce chapbooks using scissors and tape (a production method I've been told, universally, is horribly antiquated). Thanks to the team at Invisible Publishing for the post, and to Leigh Nash for soliciting it!

Thursday, November 1, 2018

new from above/ground press: Each Acre, by Megan Kaminski

Each Acre
Megan Kaminski
$5

morning rain falling summer dark
bones to body   body to bone
I hear each dropfall each rivulet in lawn
coursing toward street to gutter
train-call in the distance calling me back
yellowed houses at the end of blocks
dead-ended on train-tracks 
whistle through summer nights

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


cover design: L. Ann Wheeler

Megan Kaminski
is the author of two books of poetry, Deep City (Noemi Press, 2015) and Desiring Map (Coconut Books, 2012), with a third book Gentlewomen forthcoming from Noemi Press. She is an associate professor in the University of Kansas' Graduate Creative Writing Program and a Keeler Intra-University Professor studying trauma and healing in the School of Social Welfare. She also curates the Taproom Poetry Series in downtown Lawrence. Currently she is working on a book about indeterminacy, attraction, and plant thinking.

This is Kaminski’s second above/ground press chapbook, after Wintering Prairie (2014).

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