“poem” broadside #351 : “HUMHUMHUMHUMHUMHUMHUM” by emilie

 

 

 

HUMHUMHUMHUMHUMHUMHUM
by emilie
September 2020
above/ground press broadside #351

[image description: a navy blue line drawing of an amorphous bodily figure. with two dancing feet, one hand with coral-like fingers, and two other limbs, stretching. widely, jointlessly. a chunk of the form floats in a cove of itself, maybe having detached. the shaded oval underneath it might be its hole or its shadow. dispersed throughout the figure are three phrases. written in capital, dusty pink letters, they ping, "a brother blinks slow," "a brother blinks slow," "blueberries rolling in milk."]

emilie, emiliekneifel.com

 

new from above/ground press: Twenty-one stories, by rob mclennan

Twenty-one stories,
rob mclennan
$5

~

In a television interview, the filmmaker we both admire mentions how she never uses bookmarks. She has always been able to remember the last page she read of any book, and is constantly baffled by the inability of others to do the same. She glances, distractedly, behind her as she says this, somewhere off-camera, in the direction of the studio floor. What might she be looking at? Her films are like distances we have yet to reach, capable of articulating broad silences. When so many others are unable to comprehend that silence has a language at all. 

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
as part of above/ground’s prose/naut imprint
September 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. He is the author of three works of fiction—white (Mercury Press, 2007), Missing Persons (Mercury Press, 2009) and The Uncertainty Principle: stories, (Chaudiere Books, 2014)—as well as two collections of literary essays, a tourist guide to Ottawa and more than two dozen full-length poetry titles, the most recent of which include A halt, which is empty (Mansfield Press, 2019) and Life sentence, (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019), with the book of smaller forthcoming in 2022 from University of Calgary Press. He won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2010, the Council for the Arts in Ottawa Mid-Career Award in 2014, and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012 and 2017. In March, 2016, he was inducted into the VERSe Ottawa Hall of Honour.

He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com

He is currently working on, among other projects, a novel.

This is mclennan’s sixty-third above/ground press chapbook, following Poems for Lunch Poems for SFU (2020), Somewhere in-between / cloud (2019), Study of a fox (2018), snow day (2018) and It’s still winter (2017). These stories are part of the work-in-progress “Little arguments: stories,” a manuscript that follows a thread begun in The Uncertainty Principle: stories, (Chaudiere Books, 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

some author acitivity: Olsen, Johnson, mclennan, Hall + Mohammadi,

Geoffrey Olsen has some new work up at The Pi Review; Chris Johnson has a new poem up at The Quarantine Review; rob mclennan has a 'poem of the week' (text and video/audio) over at Vallum magazine; Phil Hall reads some poems via the Pedlar Press YouTube channel; Khashayar Mohammadi has a new poem in the "Tuesday poem" series up at dusie.

new from above/ground press: Bark Ode, by Franco Cortese

Bark Ode
Franco Cortese
$5

Falliure

1oi3jioj1o23
1oi3jioj1o23
o23

1 and it shall be destroyed
and there is one thing
I fall

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
September 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Franco Cortese is an experimental poet living in Thorold, Ontario. His poetry won the 2020 UNESCO / Brock University Sustainability Poetry Prize, was longlisted for the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize and has appeared in Literary Review of Canada, The Malahat Review, Canadian Literature, The Capilano Review, filling Station, ditch, and others. He has chapbooks out through No Press, nOIR:Z, Simulacrum Press, Trainwreck Press, Gap Riot Press and The Blasted Tree, with others forthcoming from Anstruther Press, Timglaset, Hesterglock Press, Serif of Nottingham and others, and various other ephemera out through .Spacecraft Press and Penteract Press.

This is Cortese’s second above/ground press chapbook, after uoiea (2019). Further are forthcoming.

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

new from above/ground press: Would You Like a Little Gramma On Those? by Jane Eaton Hamilton

 

Would You Like a Little Gramma On Those?
Jane Eaton Hamilton
$5

Carol’s sister Marjory had dangled a pendulum over Florida until it came to rest over Gainesville, the center of the state, so she’d moved there from south Florida.

A jetlagged Carol thought of something. “Isn’t this where Ted Bundy had his farewell murder spree?”

Simone, Carol’s butch partner, said, “Not to mention those chain gangs we saw coming in.”

“You go off like a firecracker in all our faces,” said Carol’s brother, Lincoln, to Carol, pushing back his chair.

Lincoln and Carol lived in western Canada, while Marjory and their mother lived in Florida. It had long been the case after fracturing away from their childhood home in Ontario. Lincoln was oldest, Carol middle, Marjory the baby. Lincoln had beat Carol and her family to Florida by days. The last time Carol had seen him, he’d been paunchy with middle age. Now he looked both older and younger than he had, rake skinny with his goatee gone half grey. “Why on earth say that? Why bring that up now?”

“Is that true?” Lizbeth, Carol and Simone’s older daughter, asked. “I saw a TV program on him. He was just some ordinary guy.”

“Aren’t they all,” said Carol. “Some guys are creepy, but they’re not necessarily the dangerous ones. Some guys are normal, but they’re not necessarily the good ones.”

“Shut-up,” Marjory said in a reedy voice, hands fluttering around her ears. Her streaked hair was oily; she had stress-bruises under each brown eye. “Why would you bring that up? I haven’t seen my sister or nieces in years, and our mother is gone and you’re talking about a serial--" She widened her eyes pointedly to show she didn’t want to say the final word in front of her son.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
as part of above/ground’s prose/naut imprint
September 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Jane Eaton Hamilton is the author of 9 books of cnf, memoir, fiction and poetry, including the 2016 novel WEEKEND, and two prior collections of short fiction.

Their memoir NO MORE HURT was one of the UK Guardian’s Best Books of the Year and a Sunday Times bestseller. They are the two-time winner of Canada's CBC Literary Award for fiction (2003/2014). They have had a Notable in BASS and three in BAE (2016/2018/2019) and have appeared in The Journey Prize, Best Canadian Short Stories and Best Canadian Poetry. Their work has also appeared in publications such as Salon, The Rumpus, The Missouri Review, the NY Times, Gay Magazine, The Sun and BAX 2020. Roxane Gay chose “The Pleasure Scale” as one of Gay Magazine’s Best of 2019 and Queen Mob's Teahouse cited "The Nothing Between Your Legs," a BAE Notable, as one of the best essays of the decade. Their story “The Pride” won 2nd prize in Writer’s Digest short story contest 2020. They won the Event non-fiction contest in 2020 with their essay, “The Dead Green Man.”

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

new from above/ground press: METASTATIC FLOWER, by Julia Drescher

METASTATIC FLOWER
Julia Drescher
$5


 
slow exposure flown frame splinter takes you in.

& tulip is a dog is part of a mouth a flower. come

posted from the clavicle dig in. i like your lips!

grid to gird incloser come awol. hammer bristles

inside the pine cone una corda sharp shell sharp

sweep barely. this petalling outmode bears earth

in some keys—speak to me like a woman

speaks. a belly rail plate music's damp

tone what erodes you—hole up in your house.



published in Ottawa by above/ground press
September 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Julia Drescher is the author of Open Epic (Delete Press). She lives in Colorado where she co-edits the press Further Other Book Works with C.J. Martin.

This is Drescher’s second chapbook with above/ground press, after BLATTA (2020).

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: o'brien, Robertson + Melançon,

forthcoming author katie o'brien has a poem up in the "poetry pause" series via The League of Canadian Poets; Elena Betros López interviews Lisa Robertson over at Cordite; and Jérôme Melançon is interviewed over at poetry mini interviews.

new from above/ground press: Sessions from the DreamHouse Aria, by Amanda Earl

Sessions from the DreamHouse Aria
Amanda Earl
$5

Prologue

A loved the Catalyst but I became bored. Did I love him? We worked together. Was she bored? We grew up together. He didn’t grow up. I was stagnant. At the office, there was a woman. Younger than her. We laughed. I admired her fairy hair. She likened her to a sprite. It was then I woke up. Did she wake? Was I flirting? At home, she was depressed, confused, felt trapped. I slept around. men/women/women/ and one beauty who defied gender. The Catalyst insisted on couples’ therapy. Was there therapy?

The therapist’s office, was it an office? In her home. A walk from my own. Those August afternoons in the heat. Plants had entered their yellow phase. Everything was yellow. Gold. she was tarnished. Dandelion, I was invisible, wispy, ready to sail.

I used to wander. Did she wander as a child? We lived in the country for a while. In the red brick house with a half acre. Was it a half acre? I ran away. She packed a small case with dolls and toys. I hid behind the wall, near the wrought iron gate and the tiger lilies. Did she hide?

She ran in the wind, swirling and twirling. How I loved to run. In the apartment where we moved, she loathed the city unless I could get out to the creek, hide away from him. The Old Catalyst took her for rides in the car alone on weekdays when he lost his job. We went to Centre Island. His hand on her thigh, moving upwards. I moved out as soon as I could. 19. The man she met was kind, we were young. I was numb. A fairy tale princess sleeping through life. Did I sleep?

I wrote a letter to the Sprite. Confessing her … did I confess my love? The correspondence was corny as fuck. Sentimental. I wrote poetry, drew illustrations of flowers and fairies. The Sprite e-mailed me. No.

The Catalyst was hurt. He said she had betrayed him. By my confession of love for someone else? Was she in love? By the secrets. Of my childhood. She lay in bed, heavy as a stone. I wanted only to sleep.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
as part of above/ground’s prose/naut imprint
September 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Amanda Earl (she/her) makes poetry, prose, visual poetry and whimsy. She lives with her husband, Charles. Her books are A World of Yes (DevilHouse, Ottawa, Ontario, 2015); Kiki (Chaudiere Books, Ottawa, Ontario, 2014 now available with Invisible Publishing), Coming Together Presents Amanda Earl (Coming Together, New York City, 2014).

Her latest chapbook is En Fer, A Long Poem About A Love Affair (Ghost City Press, 2020)

Amanda is the managing editor of Bywords.ca and the fallen angel of AngelHousePress. She is the recipient of the 2017 Tree Reading Series Chapbook Award for Electric Garden. She was inducted into the VERSeOttawa Hall of Honour in 2014. Two of her manuscripts were shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch Innovative Poetry Award. Further information is available at AmandaEarl.com. Connect with Amanda on Twitter @KikiFolle.

This is Amanda Earl’s eighth chapbook with above/ground press, after Eleanor (2007), The Sad Phoenician’s Other Woman (2008), Sex First & Then A Sandwich (2012), A Book of Saints (2015), Lady Lazarus Redux (2017), The Book of Mark (2018) and Aftermath or Scenes of a Woman Convalescing (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

above/ground press launches a prose chapbook imprint: prose/naut

Leaning up to the press’ twenty-eighth year of production, Ottawa’s above/ground press launches a prose imprint, “prose/naut,” and announces its first four chapbook titles, which will each become available over the next few weeks:

Amanda Earl, Sessions from the DreamHouse Aria (September 2020)

Jane Eaton Hamilton, Would You Like a Little Gramma On Those? (September 2020)

rob mclennan, Twenty-one stories, (September 2020)

Keith Waldrop, from THE LOSS FOR WORDS (October 2020)

Why a prose imprint? With more than one thousand poetry-specific publications produced over the past nearly thirty years, why branch out into prose? I suppose the straightforward answer is that there appear to be fewer possibilities for publication for lyric prose than even there were five ago, despite the wealth of materials being produced. There is some incredible work being done, and my own frustrations as a reader has brought us, one might say, to this.

The series hopes to include single-author chapbooks of prose, from fiction to other forms, all of which will be included as part of the regular above/ground press annual subscription package. Review/media copies will also be available upon request (while supplies last).

If you wish to pre-order all four titles, I would be open to that: $20 for all four (add $3 postage for American orders; add $10 for international).

If you would rather, you could simply subscribe to above/ground press RIGHT NOW and all four would be included: 2021 annual subscriptions (and resubscriptions) to above/ground press are available: $75 (CAN; American subscribers, $75 US; $100 international) for everything above/ground press makes from the moment you subscribe through to the end of 2021, including chapbooks, broadsheets, The Peter F. Yacht Club and G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] and quarterly poetry journal Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal].

Just what else might happen? Currently and forthcoming items also include new poetry chapbooks by Julia Drescher (two this year!), Billy Mavreas, ryan fitzpatrick, Sarah Burgoyne and Susan Burgoyne, Paul Perry, Jérôme Melançon, Ava Hofmann, Alexander Joseph, David Miller, Sa’eed Tavana’ee Marvi (trans. Khashayar Mohammadi), katie o'brien, Nathanael O’Reilly, Amelia Does, Andrew Brenza, Genevieve Kaplan, Geoffrey Olsen, Franco Cortese (four over the next few months), Zane Koss, Dennis Cooley, Barry McKinnon and Cecilia Tamburri Stuart as well as a whole slew of publications that haven't even been decided on yet.

Why wait? You can either send a cheque (payable to rob mclennan) to 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1H 7M9, or send money via PayPal or e-transfer to rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com (or through the PayPal button at robmclennan.blogspot.com).

For further information, email publisher/editor rob mclennan at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com, or follow the myriad of links at http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/

Stay safe! Stay home! Wear a mask! Wash your damned hands!