Wednesday, December 30, 2020

“poem” broadside #352 : “Not Patience,” by Amanda Auerbach

 

Spontaneously start crying at Flour. Well not spontaneously easier sidestep response to Julia whose experience not same enough does not address shared experience. Why did it have to be so hard? Start to cry she has to address says I don’t mean to imply it was not hard I also cried. Was work. Less hard for her believes does not have to attain level of work. Am not at work anymore she is still there makes me angry she can stand it, does not mind failing level says shoot me. No more like show a little patience speaks slowly admired for calmness. Patience with self with work brings angry tears cannot say cannot compressed cannot be said without too much anger keep running into those too gentle to stay. Julia second. Flour before saw Marie only really holy person met up later says she believes for a purpose. Says Catholics are there at end she is argumentative more angrily not impatient relate more to her. Third saw Sara not impatient opera singer makes sacrifices waits to acquire more appealing boyfriend. Not impatient represses impatience believes got it still. Believe we should not have to be patient. Will not stop being angered impatient time ripped away count as younger fresh injured don’t know how long pull this off.

 

 

Not Patience
by Amanda Auerbach

December 2020

above/ground press broadside #352

Amanda Auerbach is a poet and literary critic. Her first book of poems What Need Have We For Such as We came out from C&R Press in fall 2019, and her poems have also appeared in The Paris Review, Conjunctions, Kenyon Review, and FENCE. 

Monday, December 28, 2020

new from above/ground press: The Peter F Yacht Club #29; stay-at-home issue


The Peter F Yacht Club #29
stay-at-home issue
edited by rob mclennan
$5


With new writing by a host of Peter F Yacht Club regulars and irregulars, in lieu of our annual seasonal reading/regatta/party [see the report on last year's event here]: Cameron Anstee, Frances Boyle, Jason Christie, Anita Dolman, Amanda Earl, natalie hanna, Marilyn Irwin, Robert Hogg, rob mclennan, Pearl Pirie, Monty Reid, Stuart Ross, D.S. Stymeist and VII.

See link to The Peter F Yacht Club #28: the VERSeFest 2020 (10th anniversary!) special / [ c a n c e l l a t i o n / p o s t p o n e m e n t  i s s u e ] here

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


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 rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Friday, December 25, 2020

happy seasonal things!

Happy Seasonal Things! For whatever it is you celebrate, and with whomever it is you might be able. We will all be together again soon.

Friday, December 18, 2020

new from above/ground press: The Odes (Incomplete), by Zane Koss

The Odes (Incomplete)
Zane Koss
$5

Afterword

When I write poetry, I almost always listen to music. Usually, I listen to rap music.

I wrote my second chapbook, job site, listening to two songs from Chance the Rapper’s 2016 album Coloring Book, “Summer Friends” and “Same Drugs,” repeating on a continuous loop. Something about those songs exactly captured the tone I wanted for that poem, and in my mind those songs left an indelible imprint on the poem. Following the completion of job site, I began to think about ways I could make the debt that I owe to the rap artists who have influenced and affected my work more obvious. Writing these poems as odes felt necessary.

There’s something strikingly visual – almost architectural – about the most compelling rap verses: a spatiality not unlike a gothic cathedral, both empty and intricate, thousands of tons of granite and marble seemingly suspended by air, imposing yet effervescent. The grid form I developed for these odes hopes to capture this synesthetic sense of spatiality. This grid form also cites the four-by-four, sixteen bar structure of the standard rap verse. The letters that constitute each grid were arrived at through repeated listenings of each song that the ode is rooted in. Some odes directly quote – or misquote – lines from the song to which they’re dedicated. Each ode was written with that song on repeat, drawing sonic textures, rhythms, tones, words, ideas, associations, and other materials from the artists that perform on each track.

At one point, my plan was to complete a full alphabet of songs. As I progressed the effort became more and more forced, as I tried to rush to completion. I started writing odes that were more about my personal history with each song rather than odes that attended to each song on its own terms. This initial method had allowed me to learn more about sound and rhythm in language than I had ever previously. At the same time, I grew more and more suspicious of the politics behind my motivation for this project, a suspicion I still hold. I am a white person with no connection to hip-hop culture other than as a consumer. I abandoned the project uncompleted. It remains so.

I offer this unfinished manuscript in partial recompense for the immense debt that I owe to the artists, works, and traditions of rap and hip-hop. This debt increases daily.

---

Any proceeds I receive from this project will be donated to the Bronx Defenders or Urban Words NYC.

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

Zane Koss
is a resident alien currently living in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. He was raised on the unceded territories of the Ktunaxa and Secwépemc nations. His critical and creative work can be found in the Chicago Review, the /temz/ Review, CV2, Poetry is Dead, and elsewhere. He has published three other chapbooks of poetry, Invermere Grids (above/ground, 2019), job site (Blasted Tree, 2018) and Warehouse Zone (Publication Studio Guelph, 2015). Zane is a doctoral candidate in the English Department at New York University, where he researches Canadian, Mexican and U.S. poetry in the 1960s and 1970s. He would like to thank you for reading his work.

This is Koss’ second above/ground press chapbook, after Invermere Grids (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 rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com


Thursday, December 10, 2020

new from above/ground press: I exit the hallway and turn right, by Genevieve Kaplan


I exit the hallway
        and turn right
Genevieve Kaplan
$5


I exit the
    hallway
    into the
    hallway
    and turn
    right.
The
    fluorescent
    lights are
    already on.
It’s lunchtime
    so all the
    doors are
    closed until I
    pass by
    an open
    room on
    my right.
The beginning
    of a blister
    forms on
    my heel.
The open door
    shows me
    a woman at
    a table on a
    phone.
I turn right.

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

Genevieve Kaplan
is the author of (aviary) (Veliz Books, 2020); In the ice house (Red Hen Press, 2011), winner of the A Room of Her Own Foundation's poetry publication prize; and three chapbooks: In an aviary (Grey Book Press, 2016), travelogue (Dancing Girl, 2016), and settings for these scenes (Convulsive Editions, 2013). Her poems can be found in Third Coast, Spillway, Denver Quarterly, South Dakota Review, Poetry, and other journals. A poet, scholar, and book-maker, Genevieve lives in southern California. She edits the Toad Press International chapbook series, publishing contemporary translations of poetry and prose. https://genevievekaplan.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 rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com


Thursday, December 3, 2020

Chris L. Butler reviews Amanda Deutch’s Bodega Night Pigeon Riot (2020) at The Poetry Question

Chris L. Butler was good enough to provide a second review for Amanda Deutch’s Bodega Night Pigeon Riot (2020), following Russell Carisse's review over in antilang #8, over at The Poetry Question. Thanks so much! You can see his original review here. As he writes:
Amanda Deutch’s chapbook Bodega Night Pigeon Riot (above/ground press, 2020) takes the reader on a journey manyurbanites know all too well from riding public transit. Deutch utilizes the haiku form to create a continuous poetic stream of consciousness from cover to cover via the experience of riding the subway in New York City.

Like riding in the car, riding the subway is a moment where many people wrestle with their thoughts. Sometimes these thoughts are a diagnosis of the self, other times they are external, a commentary on the troubles of the world around us. Examples of this in Bodega Night Pigeon Riot are the acknowledgement of a former mosque becoming a nail salon, or how New York is a city that makes or breaks all who dare to take a bite out of ‘The Big Apple.’

Detuch portrays this with lines like “the city that makes diamonds or glass out of us all.” Another great thing about this chapbook is that Deutch brings a different perspective as a New York transplant.

These haikus and sometimes micro poems weave together a larger narrative filled with self-discovery and political commentary. I recommend this to city transplants, east coasters, and lovers of shorter poems that connect into a larger story.